{"id":66634,"date":"2023-08-26T21:56:09","date_gmt":"2023-08-26T21:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africagiant.org\/?p=66634"},"modified":"2023-08-26T21:56:09","modified_gmt":"2023-08-26T21:56:09","slug":"alena-mcquarter-the-brilliant-14-year-old-whos-about-to-graduate-from-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/?p=66634","title":{"rendered":"Alena Analeigh McQuarter: The Brilliant 14-Year-Old Who\u2019s About to Graduate from University"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Hold on to your hats because we have another super genius on our hands. Alena McQuarter, a 14-year-old from Texas is about to graduate from Arizona State University with a degree in biomedical biological sciences by December and a minor in global health according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/education\/2023\/08\/13\/texas-teenager-science-graduating-college\/70565236007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">USA Today<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not content with just one degree, McQuarter is already planning to earn a master&#8217;s in biological sciences by May 2024 and then pursue a doctorate in viral immunology to study infectious diseases. Oh, and she&#8217;s the youngest Black person to be <a href=\"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/2022\/06\/15\/youngest-black-female-graduate-of-medicine-in-america\/\">accepted into medical school <\/a>and the youngest to intern at NASA?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-yoast-seo-related-links\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/2023\/03\/01\/kunle-olukotun-inventor-of-the-first-chip-multi-processors\/\">Kunle Olukotun inventor of the first chip multi-processors<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/2022\/06\/15\/youngest-black-female-graduate-of-medicine-in-america\/\">Youngest Black Female graduate of medicine in America<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/2022\/09\/26\/oshi-agabi-created-worlds-first-humanoid-device-called-koniku-kore\/\">Oshi Agabi created World\u2019s First humanoid device called Koniku Kore<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/2020\/10\/30\/meet-the-first-mother-and-daughter-to-graduate-the-same-profession-and-same-institution-at-once-cynthia-and-jasmine-kudji\/\">Mother and Daughter Graduate Medical school, Same Institution and Day<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/2018\/11\/08\/african-giants-youngest-phd-holders-in-nigeria\/\">African Giants Young PhD Holders<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>But as impressive as all this is, it&#8217;s not without its challenges. In fact, her principal once told her that young girls of color can&#8217;t get good grades or pass state tests. But did McQuarter let that stop her? \u201cIt did kind of hurt because I worked hard to get the grades that I got,\u201d She told USA Today. \u201cSomeone comes and tells you, \u2018You can\u2019t do this because you\u2019re too young or you\u2019re a girl of color.\u2019 I really wanted to show her that I can get good grades and I can go on and do amazing things. So I\u2019m proving that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She worked even harder and is now on her way to achieving her dreams. McQuarter is a <a href=\"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/2023\/02\/11\/fatou-bensouda-a-trailblazer-for-african-women\/\">trailblazer<\/a> for girls of colour who want to study science, technology, engineering, and math. She&#8217;s even created an organization called STEMGirl to encourage and support young girls like herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s also worth noting her love for music, singing, and teaching, which she has shared with children in refugee camps in Jordan. And let&#8217;s not forget her trips to Ghana and her cancer research with mentor Tonya Webb at the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/University_of_Maryland_School_of_Medicine\">University of Maryland School of Medicine<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hold on to your hats because we have another super genius on our hands. Alena McQuarter, a 14-year-old from Texas [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulyne.wp-warriors.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}