Rachel Zhang

Rachel is an incoming senior at Forest Ridge School in Bellevue, Washington and is an intern in the Hood Lab. Rachel has a passion for tennis, piano, the outdoors, language, volunteering and science. At school, Rachel is part of the full IB Diploma Curriculum, part of the Varsity Tennis team that has won the State Championships for the past three years and the founder and president of the Interact Volunteering Club.

Tennis is a passion Rachel pursues both in and outside of school. She spends many hours of her free time on the tennis court either with her coach or friends. Rachel will have played tennis for seven years by the end of high school. With a club team during her sophomore year, she placed seventh at nationals.

Another one of Rachel’s interests is playing the piano. She will have played piano for twelve years by the end of high school. Rachel finds playing piano as a way to relax and forget about the stress of school and other worries. One of her achievements include receiving the Seattle Young Artist Gold Seal.

During her free team, Rachel enjoys going on hikes and runs with her friends and family. She loves exploring the outdoors and discovering new places.

Rachel has also been able to explore her love of languages. For the past two years, Rachel has been teaching a young girl Mandarin every week. With this opportunity, she is able to combine her love of teaching and language.

To pursue her passion for volunteering, this past school year, Rachel and the Interact Club volunteered at Northwest Harvest and Mary’s Place. As an individual, Rachel has volunteered at Virginia Mason Hospital for the past two years.

Last, but not least, Rachel’s love for science. Rachel’s love and passion for science, especially biology, started from a young age. With both parents as doctors and a couple grandparents in the science field, that was a lot of what she heard about and knew as a child. During trips to the beach, walks and hikes, her dad would make sure to point out all the different creatures and trees to her and explain to her what each one was. As she grew older, she began to understand some dinner conversations between her parents about their patients and research which sparked her interest even further. After listening to their conversations, she would spend hours researching the different diseases or research projects they had talked about.

Being able to work at ISB as an intern has truly been an amazing experience for Rachel. This was the first time she could see and experience firsthand what her parents had talked about and also gain new knowledge. Over the summer, Rachel has been working with Lyme disease to find the same unique protein markers of Lyme disease in patients of chronic Lyme disease to see if Borrelia burgdorferi, a bacterium, is truly the cause of chronic Lyme disease.

In the future, Rachel hopes to pursue a career in medicine, but has not yet decided whether to go into research or patient care.

To contact Rachel, please email her at rachelzhang8@gmail.com or use the form below.

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