In their mission to diversify STEM education, twin brothers use Windows 11

[News Bot]

Twins Miles and Malik George are almost always in sync. They graduated at the top of their high school class as co-valedictorians. At MIT, these bioengineering students embraced and expanded upon their love of science. They were also in multiple diverse groups on campus such as Nu Delta Fraternity, The Standard, and Laureates and Leaders. This last program is dedicated to helping under-represented students get Ph.D.s or M.D./Ph.D.s and has a selective entry process. The two fondly remembered the program as instrumental in shaping their academic careers. They worked with MIT Admissions as Admissions Ambassadors to increase the number of underrepresented students that apply to and attend the university. On campus and virtually, they worked in several biological engineering labs. They’re about to graduate and will be pursuing Ph.D.s in Biological Engineering at MIT. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNXw08CYSWY

View: https://youtu.be/mNXw08CYSWY

They’re both passionate about bringing STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) to under-served communities through hundreds of funny and informative lessons posted to TikTok and other social media. Their mix of memes, dances and trivia reach all kinds of audiences. They teach what they find exciting about science. “The more curious you are about one subject, the more you learn about that subject, the more curious you become about everything else,” Miles says. “Curiosity is the reason why people keep innovating. And so as long as people are curious, people will keep learning.” “Curiosity leads to solutions, you know?” Malik adds. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2022/05/IMG_1995-1024x768.jpg They’ve discovered other Windows 11 features that make them even more efficient. “As a student, I am constantly searching through emails, especially through keyword search,” Malik says. “I globally search by who sent it or a keyword and it will just show up right there. And I can read it or I can click it and reply from the same place. Windows 11 really takes away flipping back and forth between things. And then anything that you don't have open, you can also just go through the Start menu.” They also make great use of Snap Assist. “I can have an essay snap to the right on Word. I can have some internet research article on the left,” Malik says. “And then if I need to check my email, it would just pop up in the center and I don't have to cover what I was already working on.” They like that they can tailor Windows 11 to what works best for each of them. “It really feels like a personalized experience when I'm online. And it really visually is a much better experience than what I'm used to,” Miles says. “As a researcher, I'm used to a lot of diagrams, a lot of graphs. It really combines multitasking with this beautiful element of note taking and annotating directly on the screen.”It really feels like Windows 11 was made to make your PC a more personal experienceWith Windows 11, Malik says, “It seems like they took everything that was good about Windows before and really focused on the user experience.” He appreciates that Windows 11 seems to take into account what people need when they’re on their computer, such as having common apps show up on the Start menu or being able to look at email in just a couple of swipes. “It really feels like Windows 11 was made to make your PC a more personal experience,” Malik says. Most importantly, Windows 11 helps them with their research and to spread their love of science, which they trace back to the sixth grade, when they were 12-year-olds scrolling through a textbook that mentioned an experiment on bacteria. They learned through the experiment that bacteria can be a good thing, when the bad part is extracted. The bacteria can grow with the gene added that produces human insulin, purified, and given to people who need it. This is when they got really interested in science, and biology in particular. The twins’ specialty is synthetic biology, which focuses on redesigning systems that are already found in nature to better suit new innovations, such as mRNA vaccines and biofuels. To students who are the age they were when they first discovered their love for science, the twins perform mini experiments and demonstrations of various science topics and introduce STEM applications. For high school students, they’re happy to discuss possible career paths and college majors involving STEM. They also advocate for diversity in the sciences to underrepresented groups, talk about their own experiences in college and with STEM research, and provide a roadmap for students interested in higher education. To convey such a wide range of complex ideas and scenarios, they break down the facts into digestible lessons for their followers. Their videos combine education and entertainment. “Science is art. Every part of science can be shown visually, and it takes a lot of artistic processes to do that,” says Miles. “I have many different visualizations I have to make, whether it's graphs or diagrams or just the way I display information. All of it needs to look neat and beautiful just like any other art form. Windows 11 really helps to bring some of that art into the research that I'm doing.”

 

Continue reading...