During Siyeon Joo’s free periods you can find her conducting her research in the lab.
Joo, born in Seoul South Korea- immigrated to the U.S. settling in Lafayette with her family at the age of ten. She’s currently a junior at Episcopal School of Acadiana.
Joo said the project was encouraged by her biology teacher who is involved in the annual meeting of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research.
Joo presented her work at the annual conference last fall in Washington, D.C. amongst other high schoolers from around the world.
“My research is looking at an algae compound called Lyngbya,” Joo said.
”It’s a freshwater algae and a lot of the times we think of algae as a nuisance. It’s something that intoxicates our waterways and its a huge hazardous environmental issue," Joo said.
"But I wanted to take this compound to see If there were medicinal uses things we could use to benefit us as humans especially in space.”
Joo said when she pitched the idea of independent research she connected it to her passion for climate change. When Joo began researching the connection between space and algae, there was not much research on Lyngbya in space.
“Because the conference was so driven by space technology and the international space station I thought why couldn’t we just bring these toxic compounds here on Earth and see if we could repurpose them into something medicinally beneficial in space," Joo said.
Joo is working to find out how the algae will be able to be grown on the International Space Station.
“My particular algae has a lot of really immersing and interesting research on anti-cancer compounds," Joo said. "So, I thought, it’s not only clogging up our water ways but there are some ways we could extract those compounds and hopefully incorporate them to help our astronauts out in space.”
After a visit to University of Lafayette’s biology department, Joo has plans to work with them in the spring.
Joo intends to major in public health in college, and is open to exploring multiple avenues, ultimately knowing she wants to help others.
“So I want to major in public health, I’m really interested in either,” Joo said.
“I kinda want to do that intersection between not too set on going into the medial field, going to medical school but I also am really interested in international relations and politics," Joo said.
"So I found public health is kind of that good intersection between the both marriages like my interests in research but also like advocating for people and communities.”
Joo plans on attending a summer program as part of the University of Chicago’s research program and will be assigned to a cancer research mentor.
On top of her research, her school extracurricular activities include; discipline council representative, the co-president for ESA’s eco club, youth and government club, and president of the books and beans club.
