Benjamin Z. (IN A NUTSHELL)

Benjamin is a freshman at Stanford University planning on majoring in Bioengineering. He grew up in Southern California (the best part of CA) and graduated in the top 1% at his high school. In his junior year, Benjamin became disillusioned with the way math was taught in public schools. Rote memorization was causing students to lose faith in a beautiful subject. He met with school counselors and math teachers and decided the best way to help was to take action himself. Benjamin subsequently became a volunteer peer tutor, arriving early every morning before school to teach disadvantaged students. He eventually transitioned to private tutoring to help a larger volume of students succeed. Benjamin believes that the most important thing about teaching math is a strong foundation from which individuals can build successfully. Outside of traditional math, Benjamin has also studied and written papers on discrete mathematics, linear bifurcation, and chaos theory, and looks forward to exploring the intersection between math and other arts with Curious Cardinals. In his free time, Benjamin likes to go on food crawls, design Minecraft homes with his two younger sisters, and bike on the beach. At Stanford, Benjamin is conducting summer research with Dr. Paul Wang, renowned Director of the Stanford Cardiac Arrhythmia Service and Professor of Medicine and of Bioengineering, where he will use programming to help map ventricular tachycardia in a perfused heart system. Benjamin also facilitates 1-on-1 mentorship events for Vietnamese students as a Public Service Co-Chair for the Stanford Vietnamese Student Association and is an avid writer for The Stanford Daily.