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Rehman Hassan
1,745
Bold Points5x
Nominee1x
Finalist1x
WinnerRehman Hassan
1,745
Bold Points5x
Nominee1x
Finalist1x
WinnerBio
Rehman is the founder of iCure Health, founded when they were in middle school, which aims, across its 30+ international chapters that have helped 45,000 people, to ensure that everyone has access to quality public health knowledge and preventative care services e.g. mammograms, depression screenings, and colonoscopies.
As a testament to their service, Rehman was appointed to be an Adolescent Champion of the WHO's Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health. In this capacity, they will be co-leading the Global Forum for Adolescents and the 1 Point 8 Billion Campaign, the main elements of the Adolecents2030 Call to Action sponsored by the WHO, UNAIDS, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women, World Bank, and World Food Programme.
Moreover, Rehman is a focal point at the WHO's PMNCH, the UN Inter-Agency Network on Youth Development, and the UN Major Group for Children and Youth. Rehman also is a UN NGO Representative/Ambassador where they regularly speak at UN events and co-author reports to the OHCHR. Rehman was also honored by becoming a UN Refugee Agency Young Champion for Refugees following his work which helped Afghan nationals seek asylum in the US and Switzerland following Taliban rule, which denied many women their education.
Rehman is not only an advocate but also a political trailblazer. Rehman works on legislation as the highest-ranking official at the UNICEF CFCI Youth Council where they represent 2.5 million young people and as the Social Media Chair of a youth political organization whose posts have reached 6.8 million impressions.
Education
Stanford University
Bachelor's degree programMajors:
- Anthropology
Minors:
- Public Policy Analysis
Dulles High School
High SchoolGPA:
4
Miscellaneous
Desired degree level:
Doctoral degree program (PhD, MD, JD, etc.)
Graduate schools of interest:
Transfer schools of interest:
Majors of interest:
- Anthropology
- Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Other
- Biochemical Engineering
- Behavioral Sciences
- Biological and Physical Sciences
- Biotechnology
- Biopsychology
- Sociology and Anthropology
- International/Globalization Studies
- International and Comparative Education
- Human Biology
- Biomathematics, Bioinformatics, and Computational Biology
Test scores:
1570
SAT
Career
Dream career field:
Scientist
Dream career goals:
Serving humanity in anyway that I can, especially through international service and science
Youth Internet Consultant
UNICEF: On the occasion of International Safer Internet Day, participated in a youth consultation focused on youth priorities on technology and best practices to ensure that the internet and other technologies are safe and equitable for young people2023 – Present1 yearYouth and Gender Equity Consultant
UN Women: First-author of a report on the harms of biomass cooking and best practices to encourage innovation to solve these issues; used to create the guiding document of the Commission's 67th session2023 – Present1 yearFamily Planning & Sexual Health Consultant
UN Population Fund & WHO: Reviewed technical documentation set forth by the UN Population Fund and the WHO to design contraceptive devices and identified areas of potential improvement to best promote the inclusivity and efficacy of these guidelines2023 – Present1 yearEquity and Equality Consultant
Government of the European Union: first-author report on protecting victims and ensuring due process in EU equality bodies; will inform legislative debate and will be presented to the European Parliament and Council2023 – Present1 yearCOVID-19 Recovery Human Rights Consultant
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: First-author of a report focused reducing inequity following the pandemic; will inform a report at the Human Rights Council at its fifty-fourth session2023 – Present1 yearEducational Human Rights Consultant
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: First-author of a report on education across the world; will inform a report of the UN Special Rapporteur to the Human Rights Council2023 – Present1 yearMigrant Human Rights Consultant
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: First-author of a report to reintegrate the female Rohingya refugee population into Bangladesh; will inform a report of the UN Special Rapporteur to the Human Rights Council2023 – Present1 yearConsultant for the United Nations Committee for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: First-author of a report on the dire child labor crisis in Yemen; Invited to present my work before the Committee and six country leaders/representatives2023 – Present1 yearGender and Sexual Minority Human Rights Consultant
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: First-author report on the freedom of religion and the rights of sexual/gender minorities; will inform the a report a UN Independent Expert at the 53rd session of the UN Human Rights Council2023 – Present1 yearChild Human Rights Consultant
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: First-author of a report on methods of protecting children's human rights, following COVID-19; will inform the High Commissioner's report at the 54th session of the Human Rights Council2023 – Present1 yearHomelessness Consultant for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Government of the United Kingdom: Completed legislative review of information surrounding the implications of the abolition of Section 21 evictions; will inform provisions in the Renters Reform Bill and help develop the Homelessness Code of Guidance2023 – Present1 yearHealth and Communication Consultant for the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency
Government of the United Kingdom: Consulted the government of the United Kingdom on best practices to promote health equity through improved communication between government regulatory agencies and healthcare professionals2023 – Present1 yearAmbassador
Beto for Texas (Personally reached 86,000+ Texans by calling, going door-to-door, texting, and hosting events)2022 – Present2 years2022 United Nations Youth Delegate (received scholarship worth $5,000 to attend event)
YOUNGA (Assisted in the writing of the Youth Communiqué, which will be presented to UN officials such as the Secretary-General, and the United Nations General Assembly)2022 – 2022UN DESA Future of Population Growth Conference Youth Delegate
UN DESA (Authored a paper on how population growth and aging impact the ability of people to afford equitable healthcare which was sent to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights)2022 – 2022United Nations Right to Development Youth Delegate
UN Human Rights (Wrote and compiled report to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the importance of guarding the right to development in the face of COVID-19)2022 – 2022United Nations ECOSOC Youth Forum Youth Delegate and NGO (sponsored by the UN) Summit Co-Chair
United Nations Economic and Social Council (Wrote and compiled a report to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the importance of protecting youth rights and health disparities)2022 – 2022WHO Health of Migrants Youth Delegate
World Health Organization2022 – 2022United Nations "Above Water" Film Presentation Youth Delegate
United Nations2022 – 2022United Nations Report on Child Violence Youth Delegate
United Nations2022 – 2022UN Human Rights in Ukraine Youth Delegate
UN Human Rights (Contributed to a report to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the human rights crisis in Ukraine focusing on its impact on youth)2022 – 2022UN Women Side Event Summit Organizer on Women Leadership
UN Women (Hosted a UN side-event associated with UN Women and the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights to empower women connecting with female leaders in the United States, Spain, Switzerland, Nigeria, and China)2022 – 2022Editor in Chief
Kid Changemakers Magazine, TV, Podcast, and Blog (working on project focusing on highlighting young leaders across the world)2022 – Present2 yearsEditor in Chief
Beyond the Science in Healthcare Magazine (published and authored part of magazine which currently has 60,000+ views in 15+ countries)2022 – Present2 yearsYouth Delegate to the first US-based UN Youth Climate Conference
UNFCCC (Co-authored an evidence-based document presented to the White House and at the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference- COP27 on the climate crisis)2022 – 2022UNESCO Education Summit Youth Delegate and Presenter
UNESCO (presented on the mental health crisis in the world and how it can be solved using educational policy; wrote a report to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights on addressing mental health through education)2022 – 2022Co-founder
Informal Project to Help Afghan Refugees and Nationals (Helping 100+ Afghan nationals being terrorized by the Taliban seek asylum in the US and Switzerland; identified and/or raised $1,000,000 for these nationals to aid their journey into the US)2018 – Present6 yearsYoung Ambassador & Publication Writer & Editor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (4 publications) & Summit Co-Chair
Ariel Foundation International & Citizen Outreach Coalition (Spoke at 4 UN events and offered written contributions at 3 other UN events; hosted or presented at 2 UN side events)2020 – Present4 yearsStudent Body President & Youngest Member of Management
Ismaili Center (represented 1500+ students; ensured the safety of 300+ students weekly with a 0% injury rate; set up classrooms and designed activities to increase engagement)2017 – Present7 yearsFocal Point to the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth (iCure is a partner)
Established an extensive partnership between iCure, the non-profit I founded, and the United Nations2022 – Present2 yearsYoung Champion for Refugees
UN Refugee Agency (Recognized for my work with Afghan Nationals and Refugees, was appointed a UN Refugee Agency Young Champion for Refugees)2022 – Present2 yearsSocial Media Chair reaching 6.8 million people & Beto for Texas Ambassador
Youth for Beto (Achieved 6,800,000+ views and 20k followers; engaged 904k social media accounts in 30 days; managed team of 25 social media team members and 600+ Youth for Beto members; helped organize events featured on MSNBC, ABC News, CBS, & NBC).2022 – Present2 yearsUNICEF Child-Friendly Cities Initiative Youth Council Secretary (highest ranking official)
UNICEF (elected; representing Houston's 2.5 million young people; drafting youth mental health legislation using educational policy; hosting UN side event on youth recovery to COVID-19)2022 – Present2 yearsFocal Point to the United Nations Inter-Agency Network on Youth Development (iCure is a partner)
Established an extensive partnership between iCure, the non-profit I founded, and the United Nations2022 – Present2 yearsNGO Representative and Young Ambassador at the United Nations
United Nations Economic and Social Council (hosting UN side event on how global health investments are needed to recover from COVID-19)2020 – Present4 yearsFocal Point to the World Health Organization Representing iCure (iCure was recognized as a partner)
World Health Organization Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health2022 – Present2 yearsWHO Adolescent Champion for the Global Forum for Adolescents
World Health Organization PMNCH (1 of 5 hand-selected individuals across the world to lead the Global Forum for Adolescents, the largest event in history focused on adolescent well-being which will engage 1 million young people)2022 – Present2 yearsiCure Internship Program Executive Director
iCure Health International 501(c)(3) est. 2016 (taught 65 interns from Baymon, Puerto Rico to Doha, Qatar who helped 15,000+ people across 70+ communities)2021 – 2021iCure Chapters Program Executive Director
iCure Health International 501(c)(3) est. 2016 (expanded iCure to have 30+ global chapters at graduate research institutions, medical schools, universities like Yale and the University of Toronto, and high schools)2020 – Present4 yearsCEO & Founder
iCure Health International 501(c)(3) est. 2016 (led programs helping 45,000 people, conducted 20,000 preventative care tests worth $100,000+ in monetary value, and created educational material in 3 languages viewed in 20 countries)2016 – Present8 years
Sports
Field Hockey
IntramuralPresent
Bowling
IntramuralPresent
Basketball
IntramuralPresent
Badminton
IntramuralPresent
Tennis
IntramuralPresent
Research
Genetics & Cancer Biology
MD Anderson Cancer Center- the world's #1 cancer hospital (analyzing the circumstances in which transposons are expressed and how their expression may be linked to diseases) — Cancer Biology Research Assistant & Manuscript Co-author2022 – PresentPublic Health
University of Maryland College Park (Analyzing 20,000+ tweets to understand social media responses to the overturning of Roe v. Wade using AI; investigating how architecture may influence mental health using AI & Google Street View Data) — Public Health and Biostatistics Research Assistant & Manuscript Co-author2022 – 2022Infectious Disease
Baylor College of Medicine (conducted review on how patients with spinal cord injuries respond to COVID-19; investigation on how to prevent antibiotic resistance in patients with spinal cord injuries) — Spinal Cord Injury Research Assistant2020 – 2020A meta-analysis on the risk factors for COVID-19 infection
Sugar Land Family Practice (Screened and reviewed 36,000 scholarly literature abstracts and 500 full-length articles related to the investigation) — Lead Student Researcher, Intern & Manuscript First Author2020 – 2021
Arts
Dulles High School
ActingA Tragedy of Elizabethian Times2019 – 2020The Village School
ActingMidsummer Night's Dream2018 – 2019Dulles High School
ActingMidsummer Night's Dream2022 – 2022
Public services
Volunteering
Dulles High School (Responsible for supplementing the education of 1,200+ students across 40+ class periods; designed and/or set up 30+ laboratory activities; lead weekly tutorial sessions after school) — Teacher's Assistant and Lab Aid2019 – PresentVolunteering
Dulles High School — Biology 1 Teacher's Assistant and Lab Aid2019 – PresentVolunteering
Dulles High School — AAC (Advanced) Biology Teacher's Assistant and Lab Aid2019 – PresentVolunteering
Dulles High School — AP Biology Teacher's Assistant and Lab Aid2021 – PresentVolunteering
Dulles High School — Chemistry 1 Teacher's Assistant and Lab Aid2021 – PresentVolunteering
Dulles High School — AAC (Advanced) Chemistry Teacher's Assistant and Lab Aid2021 – PresentVolunteering
Dulles High School (Completed and showed explanatory work for all related College Board released AP Chemistry free response questions from 1982 to 2022) — AP Chemistry Teacher's Assistant and Lab Aid2022 – PresentVolunteering
Dulles High School — Earth and Space Science Teacher's Assistant and Lab Aid2022 – PresentVolunteering
Dulles High School (Completed and showed explanatory work for all related College Board released AP Environmental Science free response questions from 1999 to 2022) — AP Environmental Science Teacher's Assistant and Lab Aid2021 – PresentVolunteering
Dulles High School — AP Physics 1 Teacher's Assistant and Lab Aid2021 – PresentVolunteering
Red Cross Gulf Coast Region (Certified Be Red Cross Ready presenter teaching 30+ individuals the importance of fire safety and actionable methods of reducing the risk of fatality and morbidity following a home fire) — Official Be Red Cross Ready Presenter2020 – 2021Volunteering
Red Cross (Completed 150+ hours; earned designation for completing the most number of hours at school; instituted program that raised 700,000+ grains of rice for the World Food Programme; organized 5+ events impacting/involving 200+ individuals) — Event Coordinator2019 – 2021Volunteering
National Runaway Safeline (Help youth contextualize crises and evaluate their options; successfully helped youth escape poverty, grooming, abuse, and rape situations; respond to forum posts which often receive 10,000+ views) — Homeless Youth Hotline Volunteer2022 – PresentVolunteering
Samaritans (Use a "befriending" and direct approach to help people express their feelings and what is happening to them; use de-escalation methods with callers in imminent risk of suicide; risk access all callers for suicide) — Certified Suicide Hotline Volunteer2022 – Present
Future Interests
Advocacy
Politics
Volunteering
Philanthropy
FLIK Hospitality Group’s Entrepreneurial Council Scholarship
Gallons of water rushed in, and fragments of my home’s foundation floated to the top of the water. My skin broke out in hives as these chunks wedged themselves into my feet when I so desperately attempted to shovel the water out. I was left in the cold with burning hot skin from the stinging response of my immunoglobulin E antibodies, fighting the intruders coming in through my cracked skin. I wheezed as I breathed in noxious carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, and sulfur dioxide from the closed-off fireplace, burning my windpipe.
Living through the Texas Winter Storm in my sophomore year of high school was brutal. Combined with flooding after my home’s water pipes broke, my family was devastated as our home fell into disrepair in front of our eyes. This led to a chain of eight months without access to stable housing and constant uncertainty about our lives.
My time became greatly limited: I found myself choosing between learning trigonometric identities and Lewis structures while shoveling water out of the crevices of my home. We moved around Texas wherever we could stay, with relatives, in the car, and in hotel rooms.
My story of hardship in light of the winter storm was not unique. Hearing of the death of my friend’s mother due to carbon monoxide poisoning and a relative falling to his death after not being able to see in the dark made me realize the importance of advocacy and direct involvement to prevent situations like these. Although I struggled to survive the difficulties of high school, I found a newfound desire to ensure the well-being of my community members and others. I spent nights researching and learning more about what could have caused the power grid of the world’s 8th largest economy to just fail. As I delved deeper into the complex world of economics and environmental science, I realized that my role as a community member was to protect people from situations such as these through wellness and advocacy. Through extensive time management and the help of many mentors, I learned to advocate for myself and those in my community. I filled my spare time with hours on hold with insurance companies, non-governmental organizations, and my elected representatives to advocate for change.
Today my advocacy extends beyond phone calls and passionate emails trying to get the attention of decision-makers. Now, I work as a decision-maker, creating policy through the UNICEF City of Houston Youth Council where I am working on passing legislation to ensure that individuals have access to mental health support outside of school environments, especially during natural disasters, a concern that I have identified through my work as a suicide hotline volunteer. I hope that my policy work combined with my interests in the sciences will enable me to push for meaningful progress across my community and beyond.
My direct involvement as well as my advocacy extends beyond the scribbled country borders of the United States, Ghana, Kenya, Switzerland, and Afghanistan. My work with the United Nations has enabled me to speak at conferences to advocate for women's education, greater diversity, youth STEM involvement, and disaster preparedness as well as publish reports to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights which have been presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
In the future, I hope to work within healthcare and technology to meaningfully support communities hurt by natural disasters. I believe that by attending college, I will be able to have the tools necessary for a future committed to protecting families like mine.
Sean Carroll's Mindscape Big Picture Scholarship
Winneradenine cheats on thymine at every chance he gets with the ever-flirtatious, home-wrecking tramp of a nucleotide, uracil. Uracil doesn’t even have a stable career with his missing methyl group. No wonder every time the toxic pair cheats, they produce an RNA molecule that can be instantly degraded, sometimes by itself, hurting every other hardworking nucleotide because they couldn’t keep their hydrogen bonding tips to themselves. This unceasing sin of infidelity that erupted since before the dawn of life contrasts with the boundless beauty of the genome, inspiring me to study its properties and implications in human societies.
High school was an entirely new environment I never experienced before; from the thumps of the ceiling raccoons to the laughs at my weight, I immediately felt out of my element. I couldn’t wait until I would be free from the shackles of high school—until I walked into my biology class. I was fascinated by Mrs. Mathew’s enthusiastic demeanor, biology’s central dogma plastered on her wall next to the poster emphasizing that everyone shares 99% of her DNA. After many expeditions to Wikipedia’s wonky website, where a wealth of wisdom only served to deepen my absorption into the world of genetics, I was hooked.
Soon after came late rides to the library my father begrudgingly agreed to and massive books piled on my desk, so heavy I needed to wheel them around. I waded through thousands of dense pages, sometimes reading 10 pages before finding a word I recognized. Genetics was its own world, with hundreds of armored locks only opened by these fascinatingly dry books that I could not put down (figuratively, of course, because I couldn’t pick these books up in the first place). As I picked at the shackles of each lock, I understood more and more: the string of adulterous adenines and forsaken thymines married together by phosphodiester bonds promoting transcription, and thus adultery, of coding sequences and the half of the genome made of transposons, repetitive elements of the genome normally suppressed that can move between the 3 billion nucleotide pairs of the DNA double helix.
Later came my summer of 18-hour days spent studying thousands of gigabytes of RNA sequences, massive lists of unfaithful As, hideous Us, and tranquil Gs and Cs found in a cell. I joined the Ge Laboratory at MD Anderson to study these transposable elements of the genome that were found to be expressed in cancer and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, representing an issue in gene regulation. The research I work on focuses on identifying how proteins regulate the expression of transposons and the circumstances and extent to which transposons are expressed in RNA, which may shed light on the coevolution of humans with microbes. Time passed differently in the lab; I was surrounded by interesting personalities and captivated by research I’d never done before, spending my nights with my lab mates and joking about our obsession with pumpkin spice lattes.
Genetics is an endless world that we learn more about every day. Just today (December 15th) we learned that an allele common in people of African ancestry can introduce a PAM sequence which can lead to two dangerous diseases: sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia. Yesterday scientists identified 867 genes that can promote the survival of specific pancreatic cells. Not only is genetics fascinating, but is increasingly applicable to nearly everything, whether that be creating genetically modified tomato plants that have a higher yield or even using ancient genetic remnants of prehistoric viral infections (endogenous retroviruses) to create immunotherapy treatments for cancer. Genetics could be the key to conquering cancer, understanding the development of humanity, or even creating an artificial uterus. Genetics tells us secrets of identity, humanity, evolution, and development that could otherwise never be deduced.
Although my current way to understand the nature of our universe is through genetics, there are many other ways to understand our universe whether that be quantum mechanics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, environmental science, or anthropology. Understanding the universe is not only important because it may allow us to conquer many of our world’s challenges such as global warming (which can hopefully be accomplished through technologies like the newly developed solar-collecting fabric or the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s recent ability to successfully use nuclear fission to produce energy), but also because understanding the universe is simply understanding. Learning about topics such as quantum entanglement or the multiverse is simply interesting and a way to break free from the monotony of daily life. The work of countless scientists every day helps us recognize the intricacies of the universe and better understand how these intricacies may influence us. Science tells us a story that is too enthralling for us to ever put down, bringing joy during tough times and defining how we view ourselves as well as the world around us.
Through a university education, I hope to continue to learn more about the world around me. To better learn about the intricacies of the world, I hope to continue my research on transposons, especially in analyzing transposon expression during the first stages of development. I hope that my research looking at how transposons are reorganized during development can shed light on the story of human and mouse evolution, similar to Nobel Laureate Dr. Svante Pääbo’s research connecting genetics to anthropology. I hope to understand how humans can change over time and the factors that have led to many of the unique characteristics of humans. I am especially interested in understanding the development of a human’s seemingly smaller-sized corpus callosum (a connective complex between the hemispheres of the brain) even though evolution has favored a larger number of connection fibers between parts of the brain. I also hope to understand how the process of transposon reprogramming has led to the development of new alleles while keeping other important alleles intact.
Beyond biology and anthropology, I hope to use my university education as a time to explore new ideas and subjects, especially quantum mechanics. I hope to work on new research on quantum computing and learn more about randomness, combining philosophy with physics. I feel that learning about quantum mechanics would reveal so much about the universe, especially when considering its implications for how we interact with the world and how we view ourselves in relation to the universe. Moreover, quantum mechanics, especially when it comes to quantum computing, could be key to understanding some major points of contention within our universe whether that be something as simple as answering the traveling salesman problem or something as complex as positioning telescopes to visualize ancient stars, galaxies, black holes, and planets.
Our world is so complex and constantly fills me with new questions about myself and the universe at large. I hope to constantly question our universe and learn as much as I can. I doubt that I will know everything about the many secrets of our universe, but that is just something that I will have to come to terms with just as I have come to terms with the fact that 22% of my 223,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 nucleotides are cheating bastards.