Palmer Robotics Club: Co-President, secured funding and expanded VEX robotics access. Senior Physics Olympiad: Captain, drove school's 1st place rank in city. Chemistry/Science Club: Coach preparing students for Avogadro Exam.
BASIC Youth BC: Co-founded a provincial society fostering a community for aspiring astronomers. Study Stars Abroad: Co-founded a national non-profit for cross-cultural English exchanges (Canada/Taiwan) and academic competitions.
SciQuest: Founder of STEM outreach for 100+ elementary students. Science Fair: Head Judge and Mentor, directed 41+ judges and guided mentees to regional awards. Geering Up: Junior Instructor assisting K-7 STEM lessons.
Palmer Helping Hands: Founder & Co-President encouraging junior student volunteering. Richmond Public Library: Teen Ambassador helping plan library programs and serving as board meeting representative.
Bel Canto Music: VP Internal Affairs, fundraising via music. SHAD '25: Logistics team for Coffeehouse masquerade and Co-director of Variety Night concert. Rabbitat Shelter: Volunteer caring for 170+ rabbits.
Rank: 1st in World & Canada (2026)
Achieved Perfect
Score globally in the prestigious international mathematics competition. Yana only participated from Palmer.
View
2026 Results
National Award Winner (Top in Canada) & Bronze Honour Internationally
Prestigious
International Astronomy & Astrophysics Competition (IAAC) honours.
Announcement & National Awards Link
Waterloo SIN Contest ×2: Top 5% Canada, Top 15% Int'l (Certificate of Distinction).
Waterloo Chem 13: Top 8% Canada, Top 10% Int'l (Top Achiever Award).
UBC Physics Olympics: 1st in Richmond, 20th overall in BC. (9th Cratering, 15th Quizzics, 16th Pole Climber).
Palmer's Top Waterloo Chemistry News
2× Regional Silver Medals (Grades 8 & 9)
SCWIST
National Special Award & BC Provincial Junior Geoscience Award.
2023 GVRSF Link
2024 GVRSF Participants
Spring Science & GVRSF
Concert Band Silver Medal (Grade 9)
Percussionist in RC Palmer Concert & Honours Band. MC for Winter Concert'23, Gateway Concert'24, Year-end Concert'25. Piano Level 6 RCM.
Richmond News Feature
Mathematics: Cayley (Distinction), 2× Pascal (Distinction), Fermat (Distinction), Euclid (School-selected participant).
School Awards: Life Science 11 subject award, Concert Band 10 subject award, Performance Award (2023-2024).
Service: 2 Service Awards (Level 2) for 100+ hours.
Jean Meeus
Precise algorithms for precession, nutation, sidereal time, planetary positions, rise/set, eclipses, coordinate transformations.
Murray & Dermott
Resonances, perturbation theory, restricted three-body problem, orbital stability, and long-term planetary dynamics.
Rybicki & Lightman
Emission, absorption, scattering, synchrotron radiation, bremsstrahlung, Compton scattering, and radiation transport.
Steve B. Howell
Detector physics, CCD noise, calibration, signal-to-noise, photometry, and astronomical imaging.
Dimitri Mihalas
A deep dive into radiative transfer, spectral lines, stellar atmospheres, and energy transport.
C. R. Kitchin
Practical observing: detectors, photometry, spectroscopy, telescopes, calibration, and observational instrumentation.
Binney & Tremaine
Gravitational systems with enormous numbers of bodies—stellar orbits, distribution functions, relaxation, and galaxy structure.
Jean Kovalevsky
Precision positions, proper motion, parallax, reference frames, Earth orientation, and coordinate systems.
Press et al.
Practical numerical integration, interpolation, optimization, root finding, ODEs, Monte Carlo methods, and scientific computation.
Trefethen & Bau
Eigenvalue problems, SVD, least squares, conditioning, stability, and the mathematics behind computational science.
Sivia & Skilling
Bayesian reasoning, likelihoods, probability distributions, parameter estimation, and uncertainty.
Feigelson & Babu
Statistics specifically designed around astronomical datasets, censored data, regression, time series, and inference.
Richard Fitzpatrick
Debye shielding, plasma waves, magnetic fields, particle motion, instabilities, and astrophysical plasmas.
Jeffrey Freidberg
Magnetohydrodynamics, equilibrium, stability, magnetic confinement, and the fluid behavior of magnetized plasmas.
Atkins & Friedman
Connects quantum mechanics to actual molecules, bonding, molecular orbitals, rotational/vibrational states, and spectroscopy.
Steven Simon
Crystal lattices, phonons, band structures, semiconductors, magnetism, and condensed-matter physics.
Software
High-quality N-body simulations for planetary systems, orbital dynamics, resonances, asteroid systems, and gravitational interactions.
Database
The actual literature-search infrastructure for astronomy and astrophysics.
Software
Lets you overlay astronomical catalogues, survey images, coordinates, sources, and measurements on actual sky data.
Database
Cool infrared astronomical datasets from missions and surveys; excellent introduction to working with archival research data.
Interested in astrophysics research collaborations, CERN BL4S discussions, or creative coding? Get in touch!
Passionate High School Researcher and Astrophysics Innovator from Richmond, BC. Enrolled in the Pre-AP Incentive Program with a 3.99 / 4.26 GPA.
Selected as 1 of 9 international high school scholars worldwide for the Haus der Astronomie Internship under the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg, Germany.
Co-President of the School Physics & STEM Society, leading research proposals for CERN Beamline for Schools and cardiovascular omics workflows at the UBC Computational Biology Lab.
Adjust the interactive retro space desktop environment:
RC Palmer Secondary School
Pre-AP Incentive Program
Richmond, BC • Advanced Placement & Honors Track
Select any desktop window to focus:
Have questions regarding astrophysics research, CERN BL4S, or collaborations?