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The 74
16 Under 16: Meet The 74’s 2022 Class of STEM Achievers
July 31, 2022
By Emmeline Zhao
This spring, we asked for the country’s help identifying some of the most impressive students, age 16 or younger, who have shown extraordinary achievement in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
After an extensive and comprehensive selection process, we’re thrilled to introduce this year’s class of 16 Under 16 in STEM. The honorees range in age from 12 to 16, specialize in fields from medicine to agriculture to invention, and represent the country from coast to coast.
From the broad pool of nominations, our independent panel of judges made their selections based on three major criteria:
Creativity: The student demonstrates ingenuity and the ability to design something new and disruptive. The student considers things that haven’t been done before and embraces the unexpected.
Changemaking: The student demonstrates initiative with consideration to social issues, equity, and the capacity to inspire change in others and within their community.
Resilience: The student demonstrates the ability to persevere by using challenges as opportunities for growth. The student displays grit by always moving toward their goals despite difficulties encountered along the way.
These three qualities were like “the spark, the light and the flame” for each student’s work in STEM, said judge Mason Tang, an engineering manager for Grammarly. (Meet all three judges here.)
Many of these teens have otherwise been recognized for their achievements with a variety of awards from countless organizations. Here, rather than listing their accolades, we’d like to highlight the work that they have done and what their nominators had to say about them. We hope that these incredible youngsters can inspire others — and offer hope that our future can be in pretty good hands. Please meet The 74’s 2022 class of 16 Under 16 in STEM (click on portraits below to jump directly to each honoree’s biography):
STEVEN HOFFEN, 14
Riverdale Country School ■ Bronx, New York
A pre-pandemic visit to Sindyanna of Galilee, a nonprofit in Israel where Jewish and Arab women work together to foster social change and cultivate hydroponic gardens, inspired Steven Hoffen to produce a short documentary telling the story of their efforts.
Conducting interviews remotely through the onset of the pandemic, Hoffen was fascinated by the cross-cultural collaboration of Israeli and Palestinian women. The final film, “Growing Peace in the Middle East,” was recognized at numerous film festivals and prompted Hoffen to launch a nonprofit, Growing Peace, which is dedicated to using hydroponics “as a medium to educate, empower and help those in need.”
Steven was able to raise $15,000 in the nonprofit’s first year, allowing Growing Peace to fund the installation of a hydroponics system at a Tel Aviv food pantry used by Sudanese refugees in Israel who were experiencing severe food insecurity during COVID lockdowns. Growing Peace has since brought on other hydroponics adopters, all of whom are women who have lost jobs to manufacturing outsourcing or automation.
These women, Steven said, have been able to use hydroponics to feed their families and generate additional income by selling surplus produce at their local markets. Because hydroponics systems require no soil and significantly less water and space than traditional farming methods, hydroponic farming overcomes issues of land and resource scarcity in urban areas and arid places like Israel.
Since producing the documentary, Steven has kept in touch with the founder of Sindyanna of Galilee. “I asked her how the hydroponics project is going,” he said. “She said that since my film has been (shown) in different film festivals, 20 more women have joined the hydroponics project. That really just made me happy.”
Among Steven’s goals for 2022 is to bring hydroponics to schools, pantries and other organizations that help those in need, especially at home in New York City.