Carolyn Almonte, a two-time finalist in the prestigious Broadcom MASTERS program, conducts original research at home
The concerns of a teenager are many — grades, college applications, fitting in. For Carolyn Almonte, a freshman at Burlington Township High School, her most recent dilemma is dead silkworms.
“We had to restart the experiment,” she said, somewhat exasperated. “They all died of a fungal infection. We think it’s because we forgot to throw out the corpses.”
This sort of crisis is common at the Almonte household, where Carolyn spends much of her time conducting original research in her at-home lab. In the eighth grade, her work propelled her to the finalists ring of Broadcom MASTERS 2017, a program that selected 30 of the nation’s brightest STEM students for a trip to Washington, D.C., to compete against one another for prestigious awards.
Thanks to the help of Burlington Township’s Youth Achievers Committee, Almonte, who has always been intent on finding answers to her many curiosities via the scientific process, was able to participate in Broadcom MASTERS twice. Her most recent winning project, succinctly titled “The Effect of UV Radiation on the Metamorphic Process of Zophobas Morio Larvae and the Ability of Bixin to Protect Against Observed UV Induced Damage,” sought to find out if human skin could be protected from UV rays “from the inside out.”
While Almonte did not win Broadcom MASTERS, she and her mother, Heather, said winning is hardly the point. In addition to the $1,000 STEM endowment for Burlington Township Middle School, $500 cash award and all-expenses paid trip Carolyn received just for getting into the program, the experience of participating in Broadcom MASTERS was the true reward.
“It feels really good to see people who are both younger and older than you that have the same experience, that go through the same process of creating a project and getting to a higher level,” Carolyn said.
For the Broadcom MASTERS finalists, Heather said, the competition is often the first time gifted students such as Carolyn interact with others like them.
“The biggest takeaway for Carolyn was, ‘I can’t believe I’m meeting kids just like me. I didn’t think they existed,’” Heather recalled. “Kids who want to talk about bugs all day.”
Heather first realized her daughter was unique almost as soon as she could speak. Carolyn would often correct her mother if she misidentified an animal, and was fiercely interested in the world around her. On a boat tour in Mexico, Heather remembers, 3-year-old Carolyn observed marine life the way most children look at candy.
“I don’t like to throw the ‘G-word’ (genius) around, but it was clear early on that she thinks differently,” Heather said. “She was always very into life science, able to take concepts and extrapolate them over from a young age.”
Initially, Heather worried the culture of the Broadcom competition would be cutthroat, so she was surprised by the supportive, familial environment that developed during the trip.
And so for Heather, the best gift she can receive as a mother isn’t seeing her daughter beat her competitors, but the opportunity to meet other parents of gifted children and see Carolyn have freedom to be herself.
“There’s nothing more frightening than hearing ‘uh-oh’ when your 13-year-old is in her bug room,” Heather joked. “That’s not something a lot of parents can relate to, so it’s refreshing to meet ones who do. We celebrate these children.”
As for Carolyn, these days she’s focused on the delivery of blue bottle flies set to arrive at her home any day now, which she will use to find out if a particular ingredient found in baby powder affects egg production.
“My mom and I are going to be cooperating in order to accomplish this task of feeding them the chemical,” Carolyn said. “But my dad says I’m not allowed to use the refrigerator for my experiments anymore, so we had to buy another one.”
