An 18-year-old survivor of Super Typhoon Yolanda will study Physics on scholarship at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to help Filipinos prepare for powerful cyclones.
Hillary Diane Andales said she wants to be a research scientist, specifically in astrophysics, to improve science communication in the Philippines to help Filipinos better prepare for powerful cyclones like Yolanda, ABS-CBN News has reported.
Andales grew up in the seaside town of Abuyog, Leyte which was nearly wiped out by Yolanda in November 2013.
Four years later, her video explanation of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity won her the 2017 Breakthrough Junior Challenge. Her video was chosen from among 11,000 entries from 178 countries.
Andales dreams of working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in the future and become a science communicator at the same time.
She said she believes that if scientific jargon will be simplified, it will save more lives as it can help more people better understand science and prepare for disasters like Yolanda.
“When there was storm surge, we were quite complacent. We did not evacuate,” she was quoted in the report as saying.
“From the time the water came through the door up until it filled up our house, it took only 1 to 2 minutes. It all happened really fast. Napuno talaga siya (the flood water filled our house),” she added.
Her father and mother was a chemist and an accountant, respectively.
“Ever since I was a kid, I have always liked Science and Math,” Andales was quoted in the report as saying.
“Instead of fairytales, they told me stories of Marie Curie’s struggles as a woman in science in the early 20th century. They told me about Charles Darwin’s adventures in the Galapagos Islands and how Einstein had a really big idea that revolutionized physics.
“I did not dream anything beyond Abuyog, but after those stories I found out that people could actually have ideas that affect the world and change it for the better,” she added.
