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Miami Palmetto High School senior Lucas Hudson sees himself working at the intersection of health care innovation and public policy someday. He found that interest thanks to an internship with the Centers for Disease Control.
“When I started working with the CDC, it all became academically interesting — public policy, social science, medicine, health,” he says.
Hudson has worked on research projects that sparked his curiosity. One such project was for his Capstone Advanced Placement Research class and one for the AP Seminar class. Both dealt with loopholes and outdated science in FDA toxicology policies.
The AP Research project was centered on the influence of what’s called greenwashing sunscreen labels on consumer behavior. Greenwashing is the practice of companies to claim environmentally safe products and practices, yet fall short of being Earth-friendly.
“It was showing how the labels exploit a loophole in FDA rules,” he says. “Basically, what they claim is that their sunscreen is reef safe even though it doesn’t have to be under the current rules.”
In the Seminar project, which was the foundation for one he did for a Columbia University summer program, he found that in the past, the FDA had to approve food additives but now the food manufacturers can do their own research. Hudson says that change has opened up a big loophole that allows the companies to make the decisions instead of the FDA.
The summer between sophomore and junior year, Hudson participated in the CDC Museum Public Health Academy Online Summer Course.
“It was a one-week intensive summer course, almost like a crash course on public health,” he says.
During his junior year, Hudson interned virtually for the CDC Museum.
“I helped create interview questions for the Director Dr. Rochelle Walenski,” he says. “I helped make promotional content for the museum’s social media and I helped make educational videos on lectures the museum put on.”
This past summer, Hudson participated in the Columbia Summer Program on Medicine and Research at the Medical School at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
In addition to the Columbia program, which lasted six weeks, he was a paid counselor for the CDC program he participated in the summer before.
“I helped mentor 14 students,” he says. “I was chief grader for assignments for those students.”
He said he saw himself in the students he mentored.
“It was inspiring to be able to guide them through a similar path through helping them with the assignments through feedback and suggestions,” he says.
After his summer program at Columbia, he was selected as a Vision Scholar for Columbia.
“It’s like a mentorship program with them and I get to work on various medical research projects and medical education,” he says. “My research is more focused on public policy, not so much medical science.”
At Palmetto, Hudson is in TV Production. This year he’s vice president of the class.
He’s a peer counselor for the Health Information Project, and president of the Social Science Honor Society. He’s qualified twice for the National Geography Bee and once for the National Science Bee.
He’s been Class of ‘23 treasurer since freshman year and he’s been on Student Council since freshman year.
“Last year, I wrote and passed three pieces of legislation – recognizing May as Mental Health Month, and two in opposition to the Don’t Say Gay bill,” he says.
Hudson’s applying to MIT, Northeastern, USC, Harvard, Yale and Tufts. He’s interested in majoring in Science, Technology and Society.
“I’d probably double major in that and either an engineering discipline or a social science,” he says.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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