Mercer Island resident Emma Li, a 16-year-old rising senior at Lakeside School of Seattle, has earned a gold medal at the 12-day Center for Excellence in Education’s USA Biolympiad (USABO) National Finals for high school students at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

International Biology Olympiad Ahead

Li is one of four U.S. gold-medal scholars who qualified for the 37th International Biology Olympiad (IBO) in Vilnius, Lithuania, set for July 12-19. She expressed her honor in representing the United States at the international stage, describing her experience at the USABO Finals at Harvard as ‘amazing’ and a great opportunity to learn from dedicated and knowledgeable high schoolers across the country.

At Harvard, Li and her fellow biology scholars studied with leading U.S. biologists in various fields, including cellular and molecular biology, plant anatomy and physiology, and genetics and evolution. Li credits her classmates and teachers for helping develop her passion for biology and is grateful for her friends and family for providing support along the way.

Li’s interests lie in molecular biology, specifically immunology, and she sees herself continuing down the biology road in college and staying on board when it’s time to carve out a career path. She has been involved in research labs at the University of Washington and finds the experience of teaching the next generation of scientists ‘pretty cool’.

Original reporting: Renton Reporter — read the source article.