The Start of my TRIP Journey by Eri Maeda

    Hello everyone! My name is Eri, and I’m a Junior at the Baldwin School. I was born in Tokyo, Japan. I spent most of my childhood in different parts of California, but this year is my first time in the East coast. I’m extremely excited to be part of an amazing program like TRIP!

I love all things music, but I especially love to play the clarinet. I’m a part of my school band program, and I also play for the Philadelphia Sinfonia. It’s an awesome group of teenagers that have a passion for music. We just had a concert in January. My favorite composer is Tchaikovsky, not only because his pieces are challenging, but because the history behind the composer and each symphony is fascinating to me. Music is also the reason why I’m curious about the auditory system. (It’s also what I’m hoping to base off my research at TRIP!)

    One of my other passions is teaching. I don’t necessarily want to be an educator, but I think that it’s the best way for me to give back to my community right now. Last year, I created an organization to tutor Japanese to American students. I think that there are fewer resources to learn Japanese than other languages like Spanish or Chinese, so I think that it’s important for Japanese speakers like me to encourage others to learn this awesome language.

Yesterday, I met an amazing group of talented and friendly people. I’m really excited to work with all of my peers and mentors over the next couple of months. After we introduced ourselves and had a mini lesson on laboratory safety and pipettes, we started getting our hands on making fly food! For the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be testing how Vitamin E (drug) can help with counteracting the effects of detergent (stressor).