Blake Senior Heidi Liu Named Presidential Scholar
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Presidential Scholar Heidi Liu appears on the set of Jeopardy. The Blake Quiz Bowl captain was a contestant on the show's teen tournament this February.
Senior Heidi Liu is one of two Minnesotans and one of only 141 seniors nationwide to have just been named a 2007 U.S. Presidential Scholar. The U.S. Presidential Scholars Program recognizes and honors some of the nation's most distinguished graduating high school seniors and is one of the country's highest honors for high school students. Application to the program is by invitation only, based on SAT or ACT exam scores, graduation year from high school and U.S. citizenship.
With Liu's astounding number and variety of academic, artistic and extracurricular accomplishments, it is easy to see why she awarded this prestigious recognition. Liu is a valuable member and leader of Blake's three academic competition teams: Science Bowl, the math team and Quiz Bowl, for which she served as team captain. This year Liu also serves as the editor in chief of Blake's literary arts magazine, The Flash. In addition, Liu has earned varsity letters in fencing and was part of the women's foil state championship team last year. Away from school, Liu is a member of the Hennepin County Library Teen Advisory Board, serves on her church's community service board and is a Sunday school teaching assistant. She also has logged over 220 hours volunteering at a VA hospital the past two years. She has a brown belt in karate and has taken both piano lessons and violin lessons for over 10 years and has been an active member of many national, regional and honors choirs under the American Choral Directors Association and the Organization of American Kodaly Educators (OAKE).
Liu's strong interest in cognitive neuroscience will lead her to seek degrees in neuroscience, medicine and economics when she attends Harvard in the fall. Her interest in how the brain changes during a person's lifetime has led her to impressive summer positions at the Stanford University School of Medicine as a research assistant and then as an intern. There she entered into collaboration with Stanford biostatistician Dr. Helena Kraemer and psychologist Dr. Ruth O'Hara. After these two summers assisting with research that led to poster presentations, Liu is co-authoring a paper examining sleep apnea, cognitive decline and statistical regression and is hoping to continue her work through two other manuscripts on cognition. The past two school years Liu has worked as a research assistant for the University of Minnesota's department of psychology.
"I've been impressed by Heidi's zest for knowledge, which extends to a wide field of interests, and her instinctive abilities to connect those areas in her research and studies," says Director of College Counseling Frank Sachs. "But she is not driven nor is she a machine. Heidi does a lot, but she also has a delightful, quirky, playful side with an engaging personality."
Students selected as Presidential Scholars receive an expense-paid trip to Washington, D. C. in June and the Presidential Scholars medallion at a ceremony sponsored by the White House, in commemoration of their achievements. During their visit to Washington, the students have access to important national and international figures, including government officials, educators, authors, musicians, scientists and other accomplished people and are provided opportunities to wrestle with issues that concern America and the world, participate in volunteer activities, attend recitals, receptions and ceremonies held in their honor, and visit area museums and monuments.
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