About Yerin Cho
Hello, this is Yerin Cho, and I am a rising senior attending a boarding school in upstate New York.
Each chapter of my adolescence has been written in different countries: attending elementary school in Seoul, middle school in Shanghai, and now high school in New York. These countries have different regulations for substances, and there have been countless times when I was offered to drink, smoke, or use drugs. For instance, in Korea and China, international students often drink alcohol to relieve stress, but students here use harder substances besides alcohol. In those moments I started to wonder how I can take action against this growing danger.
At school I often see students dealing drugs in our dorms and others who are high walking the hallways. In order to prevent more students from attempting to use drugs with curiosity, I established a DrugZero campaign and a psychology club to encourage discussions on substance abuse. My friends' indifference to this issue seemed to indicate that the dangers of substance abuse are overlooked within our generation.
As a psychology club, we spoke in school assemblies about biological effects of drugs, substance abuse, and neuroscience behind drugs. While expanding my campaign, I was awarded the Outstanding Writing Style Prize by Harvard International Review in an article titled "Harmonizing Global and Local Responses to Combat the Drug Epidemic". This year, I was awarded Gold medal by the same competition about "Rising Issues from Ayahuasca Spiritual Tourism: Spiritual Healing or Impairing".
Taking a step further, I decided to make my own substance abuse curriculum and contacted the Troy Boys and Girls Club. The curriculum consists of five modules ranging from biological effects of illicit drugs to socioeconomic risk factors in drug abuse. Soon, joining the Troy Drug-Free Community Coalition, I visit the center monthly to educate adolescents with my original drug education chapter. As the only youth in the coalition, they invited me to attend the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America Forum. Most recently, I visited the NYS Legislative office and met senators about the future of adolescent anti-drug education.
From a small-scale school club to a greater-scale education chapter of Troy, I am eager to expand my influence with my international advantage and dive deeply into psychology.
Passion for Research
In addition to tackling substance abuse, my passion lies in integrating original research with machine learning.
I noticed that another problem on campus is high levels of stress. Our small talk changed from having fun to talking about how many tests we have next week and how stressed we are. To improve mental health, I integrated machine learning with EEG and ECG data analysis to develop a method to detect stress with ECG data alone, increasing cost efficiency and availability.
Researching mental health shed light on an interest in a neurodevelopmental disorder, ADHD. I developed a biomarker that has 99.3% accuracy for detecting ADHD using EEG and machine learning. Despite its universal prevalence, there is no scientific measure to detect ADHD without consecutive and costly medical appointments. Addressing these issues, I was motivated to develop a scientific ADHD-detecting tool.
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I submitted these two pieces of original research to the Journal of Student Research (JSR), and I will attach links once they both get published.
Passion for Writing
Beyond anti-drug education and academic research, I love writing. Since my freshman year, I have written blogs on Tumblr on recent health issues or newest drug regulations in the US, reflecting my thoughts on them. Though I have been a little dormant in publishing, I try my best to upload every month!
While finding sources to write on my blog during my freshman year, I found an interesting but overlooked therapy approach that is highly effective in schizophrenia treatment, which is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
Inspired by this, I published this piece of writing in the Pre-Collegiate Global Health Review, "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): The Rising Treatment for Schizophrenia". With my initial success, I tried to retain a chronicle of writing, which led me to participate in the Harvard International Review Academic Contest. I first tried with the topic of "Harmonizing Global and Local Responses to Combat the Drug Epidemic", but I could not place a top prize. Motivated to do better, this year, I was awarded a Gold medal by the same competition about "Rising Issues from Ayahuasca Spiritual Tourism: Spiritual Healing or Impairing". Currently, I am trying to compete in the John Locke Essay Competition's psychology category.
My ultimate dream is to publish my own original writing stemming from my experience of college applications, and I hope to continue pursuing writing as my hobby :)
