Fiona Chou ’25 is passionate about public health. As a middle school student, she started a YouTube channel dedicated to sharing high-level, public health research with young people in a meaningful and digestible format. As a Taft student, she co-founded the Public Health Club, led a hands-on surgical skills workshop for students, interned at a kidney dialysis center, and spent two summers at UCLA completing surgical skills internships. For some, it may have seemed somewhat surprising when she signed on for a summer internship this year at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG). Not for Fiona.
“After taking a year of Honors Environmental Science with Mr. Lehner, I increasingly understood the interconnectedness between human health and environmental health,” Fiona explains. “It struck me that the soil composition research Dr. Oberle is conducting in the NYBG Thain Family Forest might be one of the most reliable sources to reflect the quality of life of the population in the Bronx area.”
Fiona worked side-by-side in the field with NYBG Associate Curator Dr. Brad Oberle last summer, collecting soil samples from different parts of the Thain Family Forest. In the lab, Fiona processed the samples she collected, then assessed their bulk density and composition. Finally, she prepared the processed samples for longer term storage, reference, and access, which included labeling them by their forest plot location.
“Under Dr. Oberle's guidance, I was not only able to practice problem-solving skills when faced with an unexpected challenge in the field while collecting data, but he also guided me through analyzing datasets to allow the numbers to tell a story. Even now after my 8-week internship, I am still working closely with him to complete the analysis of the data we collected in the field during the summer,” says Fiona.
While Fiona calls Taiwan home, she spent the full summer living and working in New York City, and making the most of the opportunity. A passionate and talented dancer and performer, Fiona took dance classes at the Broadway Dance Center, learned to navigate the foreign transportation system, and learned to survive without the luxury of Taft’s dining hall. She also built strong connections with researchers and scientists at NYBG.
“The NYBG internship also allowed me to network with a lot of scientists with distinct passions, one of whom is Ella Vardeman, a PhD candidate at the City University of New York. She was researching the ethnopharmacology of women's health plants used by Haitian immigrants in New York City, and finding this extremely intriguing, I invited her to talk at the National Youth Public Health Association, a network of Public Health Club chapters in different schools throughout the nation I founded this summer.”
Taft’s Public Health Club also hosted Vardeman in September.
“My passion for medicine and public health has actually deepened due to my decision to participate in this internship,” Fiona says. “I am extremely grateful for the NYBG internship exposing me to college and work life this early on in my academic career.”
Watch Fiona’s YouTube interview with Dr. Oberle here.
Fiona’s internship at the New York Botanical Garden was made possible in part through The Stott Family New York Botanical Garden Summer Internship.