Meet Mika

Mika is a rising senior at Holy Names Academy in Seattle, Washington. Her fascination with biology began in childhood after watching a lung surgery video, and has since evolved into a deep interest in cancer and the interconnectedness of human systems. She hopes to pursue a path in molecular biology in college, while searching for a career that bridges the fields between time at the lab bench with computational approaches in cancer therapeutics.

As a student, Mika’s interests span athletics, music, and community service. A lifelong classical pianist exploring genres from pop to jazz, she also sings in her school’s choir and swims competitively. She is found in many corners of her school community, from running the sound booth for theatre productions, leading the multicultural student union, to organizing fundraising for blood cancer research. In her free time, she enjoys drawing, watching variety shows with her family and spending Saturdays at the Seattle Japanese School with friends.

At ISB, Mika worked in the Thorsson–Shmulevich Lab alongside her partner, Elaine Jiang, under the guidance of Dr. Guangrong Qin to develop a web portal for Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) and Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) to study the associations between drug response, mutation patterns, and disease progression. Using Python, Mika conducted statistical analyses and built machine learning models to investigate mutation trends across age groups, identify mutations linked to aging, AML recurrence, and survival outcomes.