Berks' Best 2024 Taylor Seitzinger Community Service and Leadership winner Vanesa Aguay advocates to remove barriers to health care
May 17—Vanesa Aguay is driven by her knowledge that the health of those at society's margins matters.
So as a Wyomissing High School student she has advocated for policies to remove barriers to health care for many, including Latinos who are disproportionately being misdiagnosed, she said.
She will begin at Yale University this fall with a career goal to create a medical technology company that reduces these disparities using ethical algorithms that can make health care more accessible.
And for her work, she has been chosen winner of the Berks' Best 2024 Taylor Seitzinger Award for Community Service and Leadership.
"I'm energized by a passion to connect the diverse communities I'm from, transcend conventional boundaries, and, with a newfound purpose to learn, leave behind a better world with the innovations I engineer and through the nonprofits I will grow," she said.
Aguay's high school activities have included serving as class president, founding her school's Stand Together Against Racism Club and helping run the school's Mini-THON event.
She is on the school's STEM Team for science, technology, engineering and math; created a coded website used as platform for interclub collaboration; designed shirts for her class and managed finances of their sales; created websites for several school organizations; volunteers and translates in Spanish at the Salvation Army, is a certified peer mediator, tutor and mentor; and was a researcher and alumni coordinator for the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University.
She is the founder of the nonprofit uBridge, which bridges the diversity gap in technology fields, reaching more than 12,000 youths in six countries, and has helped run STEM workshops for an indigenous heritage event that attracted more than 400 people.
She authored and illustrated "Hola Mundo: Inteligencia Artificial para Ninos," a 105-page book for Latino teens to think critically about socio-technical systems in society, which was recognized as Amazon's number one new release
As an influencer for the Society of Women Engineers, she spoke to more than 5,800 aspiring young women engineers internationally.
She also is a three-season athlete as a member of Wyomissing's outdoor and indoor track teams and cross-country team, and works as a lifeguard in the community.
She has won academic and service awards, served numerous unpaid internships and created a digital petition to have the Berks County commissioners proclaim May 23 as youth mental health awareness day.
"In all my years as a high school counselor, Vanesa is the most strategic, focused, goal-driven, and ambitious student I have ever worked with," said school counselor Bridget C. Mayberry in a letter of recommendation.
"This student has done more prior to graduating high school than I have in my 40-plus years. She truly seems to have more hours in the day than the rest of us.
"She is held in high esteem because she is genuine, kind, compassionate and intrinsically motivated to always give her best. She has been an incredible asset to our school environment."
