Hanna S.

Hanna is a 9th grader who loves coding, music, stargazing, playing tennis, and hanging out with her friends. She has experienced coding with Lego WeDo, Scratch and Squeak Smalltalk since she was a kindergarten student. Most of her recent projects focus on Internet-of-Things device development with Python and Raspberry Pi as well as Web frontend development with JavaScript. She has completed Harvard University’s CS50P and earned Python Institute’s associate certification (PCAP). Hanna won two Global Championships (2022 and 2021) and a Global Finalist Honorable Mention (2023) in the NASA International Space Apps Challenge, which is the largest hackathon in the world that attracted 57,000 participants from 152 countries/territories in 2023. Her 2024 Space Apps project is currently being examined in the global judging. Hanna was selected as one of 10 national finalists (2024) and the Massachusetts state merit winner (2023) in the 3M Young Scientist Challenge. She is a founding organizer of two international hackathons: AnimalHack and PhysTech (Physical Activity and Technology Hack Day). Since she has been learning coding and the piano for 10+ years, Hanna is passionate about integrating science, technology and music – using technology for music when she was younger and using music for science in recent years. Her early projects include experimenting on the Pythagorean tuning method, tracking humidity to keep the piano well-conditioned in winter, and visualizing piano sound with a “smart” earring and LED lights. When working on these projects, she came across a research field called “sonification,” which intersects computer science, acoustics and music. It is an interdisciplinary study to translate data to sound. Hanna has been working on several projects on sonification since then; for example, sonifying constellations, space weather (solar wind), and the heat stroke risk for athletes (heat stress on the body in direct sunlight). Although she has not decided her college major yet, Hanna aspires to pursue sonification research in a STEM field. She has a strong desire to sonify medical data (e.g., MRI images and EEG signals) to sound and help find new patterns and indications that may not be detected in visual images. Her longer-term goal is to study how sonification can achieve what visualization cannot do well. With her technical skills and experience, Hanna has been helping a local non-profit offer technology courses to regional, nation-wide and international K-12 communities (MA, NH, VT, RI, NY, NJ, WA, CA and Japan). As a junior instructor, she has taught Python coding, cloud data storage and electronics to more than 150 students (2nd to 12th graders). Her commitment and leadership have been honored by Gold Medals of the President’s Volunteer Service Award in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Hanna studies the piano, chamber music and music theory at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School. She has won dozens of prizes at prestigious competitions such as Steinway Society of Massachusetts Piano Competition (gold medal, 2024), Chopin International Piano Competition in Hartford, CT (3rd place, 2024; 2nd place, 2023), and Paderewski International Piano Competition (2nd place, 2023). Hanna has performed at the Carnegie Hall, Kaufman Music Center, Gasson Hall of Boston College, and Shinshu International Music Village. Hanna’s project portfolio is available at https://github.com/HSSBoston/ and https://devpost.com/HSSBoston/.