Coral Gables High senior Kevin Nuno is awaiting word from MIT. If he is accepted, he will major in chemical engineering, biomedical science or something in the pharmaceutical industry.
“Ever since my father got liver disease, I’ve always wanted to help people through medicine,” Nuno said. “He had cirrhosis of the liver.”
Nuno’s father underwent a liver transplant at Jackson Memorial Hospital in October.
“As of right now, he’s healthy and recovering,” Nuno said.
If Nuno attends MIT, he’ll play football. He was recruited by a number of teams including Yale, Brown and Princeton, but most heavily by MIT. None of the schools offer athletic scholarships. He will attend on full academic scholarships.
“It would be a full ride, mainly because of my income,” he said.
He also has applied for private scholarships that can supplement what he receives from the colleges.
Nuno, who played defensive tackle, takes pride in playing football.
He learned his position quickly after starting to play football his freshman year of high school. He went out for football because of his father.
“My dad was starting to get into American football so I said alright,” Nuno said.
His family originally is from Cuba. They immigrated when he was very young.
At Gables, Nuno is one of those students that faculty and staff love. He is helpful and willing to help in any way he can. Although he’s not in the International Baccalaureate program, he helped move the IB offices from one area of the school to another.
“They are going into a new era, with changes to the IB curriculum, exams and administration,” Nuno said.
He also cleaned up the IB patio and identified the types of plants that were planted in the area, including which one were invasive species.
He combined the patio beautification with his Advanced Placement biology project.
“For the patio, mostly the manual labor and the logistics involved in cleaning up the patio,” he said. “Mostly we took out weeds. We also planted various flowers or various colors that included purple, red and yellow.”
He also counted the bugs and animals. That included a juvenile iguana and a species of beetle.
— Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
