Hometown: Cincinnati, OH
Major: Biology (Pre Med)
University: Washington University in St. Louis
David Nwankwo, our STEM scholarship winner, has been exposed to STEM since the day he was born! His mother is an internal medicine physician who has always showed David how exciting and rewarding it can be to help and impact the life of others through a career in STEM. David credits his mother as his biggest inspiration in pursuing a career in STEM, and aspires to go to medical school after college and become a physician, too! He believes that by becoming a doctor, he will be able to care for the lives and well-being of others, which will lead to stronger and healthier lifestyles.
Fun Fact: David went to a Nigerian boarding school for 7th and 8th grade!
David participated in multiple extracurricular activities during his high school career, including varsity rowing, rugby, yearbook club and even tutoring his peers in Latin. He also had the wonderful opportunity to do a summer research program at the University of Cincinnati in the school’s Biological Sciences department. During the research program, David worked on In Situ Hybridization (ISH), which is used to reveal the location of specific nucleic acid sequences on chromosomes or in tissues, a crucial step for understanding the organization, regulation and function of genes.
David’s advice for young students wanting to pursue a career in STEM is that if you like to solve all types of problems while helping others, then STEM is the field for you. A career in STEM is essentially learning how to better serve other people so they can contribute at a large scale, which can help make this world a better place!
