Internships, Camps, and Energy: My July
Subtitles are lame (but informative!). Just kidding! Hope you have fun reading this :)
Hey!
I wasn’t quite sure why we told actors to break a leg, until I realized that every play has a cast.
Thanks for reading Nina’s Monthly Update! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Welcome back to my newsletter. Hope you had a sunny (but not overly so!) June.
For those who don't know, I'm Nina Khera. You may have met me during a meeting, or at the latest networking event in Boston. I'm a 17-year-old human longevity researcher who's working on projects in the field of Alzheimer’s, longevity, and brain aging!
This month I’ve continued to do work on Biotein, a data science internship with Alio, a project focused on Alzheimer’s, and have gone to two summer programs. Aka I was very busy:-).
——
Biotein
We had to figure out some statistical + logistical things (company we’d use for sample analysis, sample size, etc) for our small follow-up study to our initial study to get some more datapoints for analysis, and have just ordered the samples needed! We’re also looking into funding opportunities, planning development of our test and our larger study.
——
Mindsets and Philosophy
Here are some thoughts I’ve been having!
I wonder how much overthinking/analysis of things is good. I guess, in terms of word-roots, overthinking doesn’t sound particularly good (“over”-thinking), but I think to some degree, perceiving things about others and thinking through the things they say and what that says about them is really interesting. At first, I thought this was a net bad, but a conversation I had at SPARC 2023 made me reflect on this (although I still believe it isn’t that deep).
Expand your worldview to include new perspectives. I think that there’s a common trap that high overachievers fall into where they look at the people around them as “dumb” because they don’t have the same type of accomplishments or knowledge as them. This is foolish. People have so many different types of knowledge and ideas and why would you shy away from any of them just because you don’t “think” you’ll get value from a short conversation? Be curious. Seek to learn and understand what you can from what people say.
——
Knowledge Bytes
Here are some recommendations from the month!
- Consistent posts on news within aging (Buck Institute Twitter): https://twitter.com/BuckInstitute
- One of my friend’s SPARC (Camp I went to this year) blogs: https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c1089542
- Most expensive place in the world: SFO (A chocolate bar was $14…)
——
Shoutouts
Here are some fun shoutouts:
Thank you to the Biotein team for persistence and good conversations + syncs - you are all awesome!
Thank you to the instructors at SPARC 2023 for being amazing mentors and having great conversations with me.
Thank you to the instructors and participants at Camp Kairos 2023 for being easy to work with and making the experience amazing!
Thank you to everyone reading this. Even if I didn't mention you this month. you probably helped me a lot. Thank you!
——
Next Month
In August, I’ll be working on Biotein, data science work with Alio, coding, and continuing my work on Alzheimer’s! (And going to Europe for a few days)
Reach out to me if you want to talk about human longevity, brain aging, (or just life sciences in general) or anything else honestly!
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nina-khera-115b5a175/
Personal Website: https://ninakhera.com/
Email: kheranina@gmail.com (or just reply to this email)
Thanks for reading Nina’s Monthly Update! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.