Audrey is a rising senior at South Burlington High School in South Burlington, Vermont. From a very young age Audrey has dreamed of being a scientist. Her deep passion for helping others and exploring the unknown has driven her to investigate what it means to be a scientist and develop a greater understanding of the scientific research process.
Audrey loves science but she also has a passion for the arts. She has been a competitive Irish dancer for ten years, has reached the highest level possible in Irish dance and has competed all across the east coast, Canada and even down to New Orleans. As she moved up the levels, Audrey became interested in creating her own choreography. Eventually she started choreographing entire dances for herself and her peers as well as helping her teacher make show routines. What she finds intriguing about choreography is the creativity and endless possibilities that are open to you when creating it.
When Audrey’s not dancing, she participates and has leadership roles in multiple clubs and groups in her school and community. She is a member of the Student Diversity Union, a mentor for middle school girls in Girls Group, a leader in her schools peer leadership program, a member of National Honors society, is a head choreographer for an annual school wide talent competition, runs the prom dress drive and is on Student Council.
This summer Audrey worked with Jacob Valenzuela and Laura Ludena on the Green Algae Biofuels project. Under the mentorship of Jake she learned all about algae and what it is like to be a researcher. Her and Laura grew mass amounts of algae and extracted the fuel from it, worked with teachers to test a lab looking at how light intensity affects the phenotypes of algae, learned how to code in R, and developed a successful electroporation protocol for the insertion of Cas9 enzymes and selection vectors into algae.
If you have any questions about what it is like to do the internship from out of state or just about the internship in general, please feel free to contact Audrey at audreyclaystreib@yahoo.com.