An Unstoppable Team
Read more about Biotrek.
Check out our article on last year’s win.
Some more hardware to add to the NEIA trophy case!
For the second year in a row, a team of students from NEIA has been awarded first place in the prestigious BioTrek Championship, a competition focused on advanced technology, entrepreneurship, and advanced manufacturing. The NEIA team—comprised of 11th graders Lila, Max H., and Milena—impressed judges with their design for a tissue-engineered medical product to address the symptoms of Endometriosis.
BioTrek, a program of the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI), challenges student teams across the country to develop solutions to real-world problems in the field of biotechnology. Teams are judged on their creativity, innovation, scientific understanding, and ability to communicate their ideas effectively.
“This program is an amazing opportunity for our students to design for future impact, present in front of industry experts, and learn how to address hard-hitting questions in real-time,” said Tim McCauley, a NEIA science teacher who advised the students.
“I walked into this class with a very fixed mindset,” Lila said, “not really believing that I would make it very far in class because I don’t consider myself a ‘STEM student.’ We were so proud of ourselves to even win and be the school finalists, and then we just kept going further than we ever thought we would.”
Max H. emphasized the importance of perseverance and following your passion. “We almost gave up and switched to a different idea,” he said. “Our mentors said our Endometriosis idea wouldn’t work because there wasn’t enough research. But we trusted our gut and did what we thought would make the most impact.”
Like Lila, NEIA doesn’t usually think of itself as a STEM school. But given our students’ recent success in STEM fields—a rookie Robotics team making it to Worlds, another Biotrek win—we’re proud that we are fostering a community of creativity, innovation, and passion for science.