Tal Berreby
Tal Berreby is 16 years old and a rising Junior at Brookline High School. She has been competitively dancing since she was three years old, and, during the school year, she can be found at her studio 12-25 hours per week. When she isn’t dancing, her natural environment is snuggling on a couch with a good book or listening to endless amounts of the Moth Radio Hour podcast, storytelling an integral part of her livelihood. Drawn to fantastical worlds and anxious to contribute her ideas, she would write analytical pieces to showcase her thoughts until her obsession with writing grew. As a sophomore, she participated in Brookline High’s Story Hour and Poetry Fest to share her writing with a larger audience. She is grateful for the opportunity to be a fellow and work with an inspiring group of students and teachers.
Kiran Bhatia
Kiran Bhatia is a sixteen-year-old rising junior at Brookline High School. Kiran greatly enjoys playing tennis and squash, playing for the high school's varsity teams for both sports, and he loves listening to yacht rock and eighties music, his favorite artists being Christopher Cross and America. Kiran serves as a Brookline High School Student Council representative interested in public health, political science, and public policy. One of his main passions, however, is writing. Kiran is a Longform Editor for The Cypress, the high school's student-run newspaper, where he has examined the effects of significant social issues, such as abortion or mental health, within his town. Kiran believes that writing is one of the most effective tools we have in society to confront pressing societal issues, and he is thrilled to have the opportunity to tell the story of the United States healthcare system through the Whipple Writing Fellowship!
Geo Elasmar
Geo Elasmar is a junior at Brookline High School. When he’s not at school, Geo loves making elaborate charcuterie boards for his family, designing posters with Adobe Illustrator, and bobbing around on boats. He’s a news editor on The Cypress, which has turned him into an obsessive grammar perfectionist, but also inspired him to explore the diverse perspectives of students at the high school. Since the start of his sophomore year, Geo has been researching high school students' mental health to find ways to address the worsening teen mental health crisis, which led him to his topic. He’s incredibly grateful for the Fellowship and hopes his final project will help those grappling with their own mental health struggles.
Mia Finnan
Mia is a 17-year-old rising senior at BHS. Her interest in writing began in fifth grade when she started keeping a diary, which failed after about a week. Still, she remained passionate about writing and keenly curious about everything around her. Mia is a music enthusiast and art lover, and occasional amateur artist. She loves photography, especially photographing other people, whether it be her friends (constantly) or strangers on the street (when she can get away with it). In her free time, Mia can usually be found out with her friends, playing guitar and bass, listening to music, or cooking vegetarian recipes.
Haven Montgomery
Haven is 16 and a rising junior at BHS. Because of her interest in child development, she tutors young children through the Brookline Literacy Partnership. Haven is always taking opportunities to babysit or nanny children and is passionate in teaching the world to have more empathy towards young minds. Growing up, she was a very creative kid and always had marker stains on her hands. Moving to a new school during first grade, Haven found herself behind her peers, however through the year she discovered she had a passion for reading, writing, and putting the stories in her imagination onto paper. In fourth grade, after reading The Crossover by Kwane Alexander, she discovered a new style of poetry that led her to become interested in slam poetry. Now Haven competes on the BHS slam team.
Matthew Nock
Matthew J. Nock is a 17-year-old rising senior at Brookline High School. He enjoys playing soccer and researching topics such as the biology of ants as well as a variety of mythological beliefs and philosophical ones. Matthew has been a member of the BHS student council for the past two years and has been a teacher's assistant for the Calculus Project as well as a student for 4 years now. The Calculus Project has helped Matthew to develop his love for teaching and has helped him to find a career path that he feels fits him the best. When it comes to Matthew's writing, he draws inspiration from the experiences of those around him. He takes in information that he reads or hears from someone which would then inspire him to write something based on that. Writing has helped Matthew become firmer in his beliefs, the research that writing forces him to undergo helps to make him more knowledgeable on the topics he's researching as well as more knowledgeable in general. His topic heavily connects him to his research due to how focused his story is on research and the experiences and beliefs of a variety of people coming from various backgrounds.
Connor Quigley
Connor Quigley is 17 years old and is a rising senior at Brookline High School. Connor has always been extremely curious about the world around him and investigating the “why” behind how the world works. Connor discovered his love for writing, particularly investigative long-form pieces, through the high school’s student-run newspaper, The Cypress, where he is Editor-in-Chief for the 2023-2024 school year. Connor has discovered the power that writing and data-driven reporting hold in creating a more informed, democratic, and sustainable future.
Sophia Su
Sophia Su is 16 years old and a rising junior at Brookline High School. Outside of school, she loves to travel, is on the BHS crew team, and is an ardent enthusiast of everything bagels. Sophia’s affinity for reading began when she first discovered the literary masterpieces of Mo Willems. The “Elephant & Piggie” books, in particular, served as a catalyst for her own storytellings of animated stuffed animals, which she proudly recited at the second grade Parent-Breakfast day. Upon entering high school, Sophia also joined the school newspaper, where she now serves as a News Editor. She is excited to continue her writing journey this summer through the Whipple Fellowship, and is grateful for the opportunity that it gives her to connect with her peers and community.
Sofía Vasquez
Sofía Vasquez is a 17 year old rising senior at Brookline High School. Sofía typically consumes her free time by listening to music, reading, writing, and spending time with her friends, family and pets. She enjoys all kinds of music however her favorite above all is reggaeton as she admires the flows and rhythms of the beats and lyrics. As for reading and writing, Sofía consumes a range of different genres, with main focuses on magical realism and dystopian. But her main passion is to write short stories, of which she has been doing since she was 7. Earlier this school year, she participated in BHS’s Day of Racial Reform and Solidarity, in which she wrote and read a personal essay to the student body about her experiences with race and racism. At school Sofía is involved in track and field and the School Within a School (SWS) community. Originally, she applied for SWS to enhance her writing craft and skills, and it has done just that. With the tools that Sofía has gained in her 10 years of writing, she fervently continues her passion, and she is proud to say that her acceptance into the fellowship program will add to that.
Allen Yu
Allen Yu is 17 years old and a rising senior at Brookline High School. Allen is passionate about playing the piano, journaling about his everyday life, and writing articles relevant to his community. Within his community, Allen is the Editor-in-Chief for the student-run newspaper at his high school and the math director at gbSTEM. Ever since he was little, Allen has been interested in meeting new people and wondered what impact he could make within his community. Over time, in search of an answer to this question, Allen discovered his love for journalism as it provided a medium in which he could connect with his community and share the stories of the variety of people that he met. Allen is thrilled to have the opportunity to meet such a talented group of people within the Whipple Writing Fellowship and to explore a topic that speaks to a variety of people within his community.
Angela Zhou
Angela Zhou, a sort of avid reader and sometimes artist, is 16 years old and a rising senior at Brookline High School. A little bit all over the place, she’s a member of APAC Steering, and tutors kids on Mondays after school, where she tries her best to appease third graders who want her to do their homework for them. When she’s not at school, she can be found on her living room floor hunched over a personal project, doodling at work, or browsing through books at the Brookline Booksmith, where the only criteria for her to pick up a book is a nice cover. Her love for writing was lit the moment she discovered fanfiction, and the flames fanned by her seventh grade English teacher’s entirely too-generous praise for her mediocre middle-school essays. Since then, she’s worked hard to improve her craft, and hopes that the opportunity she’s been granted with the Whipple Fellowship will help her continue to do that.