I’m Kaitlyn, a rising senior at Mission Hills High School in San Diego. I make ceramics, play beach volleyball, and study the ecosystems most people walk right past.
Microbiology and environmental science are what I’m really into, especially the stuff living in places nobody looks twice at. Estuaries, tide pools, coral reefs, the sand after a volleyball game. I volunteer with the Nature Collective restoring habitat at San Elijo Lagoon, and I organize beach cleanups with Surfrider. This summer I’m studying coral microbiomes at Biosphere 2 in Arizona, then coming home to do my own research at that same lagoon, which happens to be five minutes from my house.
I’ve been making art since before I could spell the word. Drawing, painting, ceramics. I’m in AP Ceramics and I mentor younger students in my school’s MudCave club, teaching them to throw on the wheel. I also make agar art, which is exactly what it sounds like: painting with bacteria on petri dishes.
This blog is where all of that overlaps. The science inside the art, the art inside the science. What I’m learning, what I’m getting wrong, and the stuff I can’t stop thinking about.
Next year, college. Microbiology.