Hi everyone! My name is Juni, and I’m a Junior from Baltimore, MD. As a native of east coast seasons and cold weather, sunny California was definitely an abrupt adjustment. However, aside from the brutal summer heat, it’s been fun transition. If the weather permits, you’ll often find me hiking the nearby mountains, camping in the desert, or out on a surfing trip at the beach. I write for the Caltech blogs as a way to (1) fund my boba addition and (2) share some of my favorite experiences and hopefully give some (good?) advice to prospective students.

At Caltech I’m majoring in bioengineering, and I’m currently working in the Prober lab studying Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) risk genes in zebrafish. I’ve attached a cool image of my CRISPR-cas9 injection into some newborn zebrafish embryos. I’m also minoring in English, constantly shocking people that literature nerds do exist at stem school. I’ve been on a summer reading binge, and I’m currently reading City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg. The book was actually recently turned into an Apple TV show, but I’m forcing myself to finish the book and form my own opinions before seeing the mass-media take.

Outside of class, you can most likely catch me down at Caltech’s athletics facilities. In the fall, I play on our women’s soccer team. Last season was our best in Caltech history, so we’re excited for the potential of this year’s team. In the spring, I run on our track team, an avid proponent of the women’s-soccer-to-long-distance-track pipeline we currently have going. Go beavers!

Extracurricularly, I’ve tried to get involved on-campus. I am a Peer Advocate (PA) and Title IX advocate, and I’m treasurer of our Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA+) club. We organize fun heritage events, host guest speakers, and have book clubs. I also had a quick (failed) stint at joining the graduate student rugby club, after which I realized that I should probably stick to using my feet, rather than my hands, for sports.

For fun, I love doodling, and I’ve spent the last couple of years teaching myself the guitar. I keep threatening to join a band, but I’m not sure if the Caltech community wants to be graced by my (terrible) singing voice. I guess for now, I’ll just leave my singing to the safety of my bedroom. I’m an avid supporter of the LA music scene, and I love finding cheep concert tickets in the numerous venues surrounding LA. I’ve seen some great shows throughout my time here at Caltech including Mt. Joy, Vance Joy, LovelytheBand, Chelsea Cutler, and Fletcher.

This year I’m serving as one of our blogs’s leads, and so, Michael and I have spent the summer re-vamping our blog site. We are very excited to share our new site with everyone, and I’m looking forward to for all of the new content to come!