On March 27th, TYP hosted a neurobiology mentoring meeting with Dr. Sonia Nan Kim, a postdoc researcher at Stanford University.  She began with a remarkably in-depth presentation on her PhD dissertation, in which she researched early human brain development by retracing the paths of neurons using somatic mutations in different regions of the brain.  Now several 9th graders can explain the difference between excitatory and inhibitory neurons! Then she held an open discussion on her experience in academia and general advice for her student audience.  In every response, Dr. Kim never forgot to emphasize curiosity and the value of the creativity that new, young voices bring to science.  She is a regular judge at science fairs, where she always sees youths’ ingenuity create new tools and find solutions to problems that adults couldn’t.  That is why Dr. Kim loves student outreach (like this seminar) and encourages TYP members to participate in science fairs.  Most importantly, nobody should feel limited from pursuing curiosity!  Dr. Kim herself developed her interest in science through science fairs, incredible opportunities for students to bring their genius to the scientific public.  In 8th grade, she extracted DNA from household vegetables. Her high school senior year project was feeding fruit flies caffeine in jars inside her garage (she was curious how the natural insecticide would affect fruit fly development).  It was a simple, yet very original question that solidified her interest in scientific research and, a few months later, gave her a research position in UCSD’s Goldstein drosophila lab as a college freshman.  We’re very thankful for having had the opportunity to learn from her positivity!