// The Tanzania Project, 2024–2026
Every summer since 2024, I’ve gone back to the same Maasai community in Tanzania. The first time, I asked students about their dreams. Returning taught me to ask what stands in their way. That question led to CytoLens, my research on cervical cancer screening.
[ Maasai community — Tanzania, July 2025 ]
// Why I keep going back
It’s easy to ask someone about their dreams. It takes coming back to ask what stands in the way.
When I can, I walk barefoot. It’s slower and rarely comfortable, but I notice what’s under my feet: the uneven ground, and small things I’d walk right past in shoes.
Tanzania asked the same of me: slow down, come closer, and keep returning to the same place instead of somewhere new.
3
Summers with the same Maasai community, 2024–2026
$7,500+
Raised by Play It Forward for instruments at GMSS Secondary School
Bronze
World Invention School Expo 2026, for CytoLens
01 — Listen
My first summer, in 2024, I came with partner churches to help with supplies and education programs at GMSS Secondary School. I asked what newcomers ask: names, families, dream jobs. I thought that was getting to know people.
I went back in 2025 and again in 2026, to the same community, and started asking different questions. Where is the nearest clinic? What would treatment take? People paused before answering. Over those summers, women told me what kept them from cervical cancer screening.
Maasai community and students, Tanzania — July 2025
// What kept women from screening
The long trip to a clinic. A day’s lost income. Little privacy, and an exam often done by a male doctor. Then weeks of waiting for a result.
Back home, I read everything I could find about why screening is so hard to reach. Those answers set the direction of my research. Read about CytoLens
02 — Build
At PURIMEDI’s Digital Medicine Institute, where I’ve been a research intern since June 2024, I helped develop CytoLens: AI for Pap smear analysis, made for places with few specialists and designed to run on a smartphone rather than costly lab equipment.
Illustration only, not real patient data or model output.
// The harder part
Building the software was the easier part. An algorithm can read a slide. It can’t shorten the trip to a clinic or make an exam feel private.
Cost was the one barrier I could move, so I’ve asked for CytoLens to be offered free to communities in Tanzania.
03 — Give back
In December 2025 I founded Play It Forward with fellow musicians. Our benefit recitals have raised more than $7,500 for instruments at GMSS Secondary School in Tanzania.
Benefit recital program — June 5, 2026
04 — Return
What I want to leave behind isn’t a visit. It’s screening a local nurse can run, offered free, long after I’ve gone home.
Each summer I understand a little more, and see more clearly how much I can’t know from the outside. So I keep going back, keep asking, and keep working toward care that women can choose for themselves, close to home.
// Maasai community & students, Tanzania
// Art, music, leadership & service
Art — 2025–2026
Thirteen works, eight of them a series on multiculturalism, in pencil, ink, collage, wire, soil and clay. One of them, An Alien Remembrance, comes from meeting children in Tanzania. Recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.
See all 13 works
Music
1st Chair in the Emory Youth Chamber Orchestra and 2nd Flute in the Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony; three years in Georgia’s All-State Band and a Governor’s Honors Program semifinalist.
Leadership
I lead the Johns Creek High School Student Council’s executive board. As a member, I brought the Fulton County food department in to hear students’ feedback on school meals.
Civic life
A student voice for Congressman McCormick on education, community well-being and civic engagement. I also represent students in Johns Creek City Student Leadership.
Service
I founded the Johns Creek chapter of this national civic service initiative. We put together care packages for deployed service members.
Education
A program I founded in September 2025 that teaches empathy to elementary students through storytelling, age-appropriate lessons and dialogue.
Service — Malawi
Alongside the Tanzania trips, I supported youth programs at PACE Academy in Malawi through summer camp service, donations and church-based outreach.
For the Tanzania Project, research, performances or exhibitions, I’d love to hear from you.
