By Tony Richards
Editor-in-Chief

Naadira Idriss dreams of going to college somewhere on the east coast and ultimately becoming an emergency-room doctor. But first, the Highbridge native has some celebrating to do.

The senior at Preston High School in Throgs Neck was honored earlier this fall with the Rensselear Medal, a four-year, $15,000 scholarship to the Rensselear Polytechnic Institute that is given to high-school students who demonstrate outstanding performance in math and science.

“I was honored,” Idriss said. “I was like ‘I didn’t think they would pick me, but they did.’ I felt my studies had paid off.’”

Those studies began to center around science, and in particular biology, in eighth grade, when one of Idriss’ teachers began taking her to science competitions. Idriss said she was drawn to science because she felt that what she learned in the classroom could be directly applied to life outside of it. “Just understanding how humans come together and work in communities, that fascinated me,” Idriss said. “Just going from the cell all the way to the human body.”

Idriss’ passion for science has kept her quite busy throughout her high school years. She participates in Albert Einstein Medical School’s Einstein Enrichment Program, in which doctors from several different fields offer career guidance and instruction to roughly 30 to 40 students of color. She is also a member of the “Science Olympiad” team, in which her team competed in events  ranging from “Wright Stuff,” in which students must design and fly a mechanical airplane, to “Chemistry Lab,” in which participants try to identify unknown chemical substances.

Sister Laura Donovan, chair of the Science Department at Preston High School and one of Idriss’ mentors on the Science Olympiad team, was impressed with her student’s performance at events. “I think she’s a risk-taker,” Donovan said. “She was willing to try a new event, and she systematically prepared for it,”

Karen Bernabe, has known Idriss throughout high school and described her friend as compassionate, creative, and persistent when it came to achieving her goals. Bernabe predicted Idriss would excel in an emergency-room setting. “I think she’s very quick to make decisions,” Bernabe said. “And I think she will do her best to look out for her patients and make the best decisions to keep them alive.”

Fellow Highbridge native Mingh Daniel, who grew up in Highbridge Gardens and is now a sophomore at Boston’s Brandeis University, shared Idriss’ love of science as a high-school student. At Mother Cabrini School in Washington Heights, where she commuted every day on the BX 13 bus, Daniel enjoyed biology for many of the same reasons as Idriss. “Just being able to, I don’t know, know the different functions and name the parts of living organisms,” Daniel said.

Daniel shares with Idriss a standout academic achievement; at the end of high-school, she was awarded a Gates Millenium Scholarship, a four-year scholarship given to students determined to have demonstrated high grades and community-leadership skills. At Mother Cabrini, Daniel was part of a group that volunteered at soup kitchens and raised funds for babies of incarcerated parents. She balanced this activity with her work on a literary magazine, membership in the National Honor Society, and leading morning prayer sessions.

Daniel arrived at Brandeis with the intention of being a biochemistry major. However, after taking a biochemistry course her freshman year, she found herself wanting to go in a different direction, returning instead to her background in community service.

“I decided to get more into the social aspects of things,” said Daniel. “Hopefully, one day, I’ll be able to teach biology to school children. I think it’s so fun.”

Daniel said she is in the process of creating her own major——urban studies and development—with the goal of studying government policy in Washington, D.C. and learning about how to implement social programs that help residents of low-income areas such as Highbridge.

Ultimately, Daniel aims to return home to implement what she’s learned.  Her ideas for changes she could help foster in the community in the future include designing a program where police mentor young residents in the hopes of improving relations between the two groups, instituting a program where sex-education experts conduct home visits, and creating funding for more after-school programs.

In the meantime, Daniel is preparing to study abroad in Japan in the near future. Sister Sharon Casey, Daniel’s mentor during high-school, said the trip was a perfect example of Daniel’s multi-culturalism.

“She has male friends, female friends, Black friends, white friends, Hispanic friends, Asian friends,” Sister Casey said. “She enjoys different cultures.” 

Idriss, meanwhile, is deciding whether she wants to attend college at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute, or elsewhere. But she knows what she would miss most about New York City if she left.

“Diversity,” Idriss said. “That’s a major factor in New York.”