Kira Becker
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology
Kira Becker confesses she’s “not 100 percent sure what I want to do when I grow up.” Such an admission from any teen isn’t surprising, but in this 16-year-old’s case, it has nothing to do with indecisiveness and everything to do with her options.
In June 2013, Becker received a perfect score on the Math Level 2 SAT. A member of TJ’s iGEM (international genetically-engineered machine) team, which competes in a national synthetic biology competition for students, she will have completed eight years of science coursework by the time she graduates in 2015. Last summer, she worked as a lab assistant at Englewood Lab in New Jersey, helping test and develop dermatological products. “In 50 years, my left hand will be much less wrinkled than my right hand because all summer I was testing anti-wrinkle cream,” laughs the McLean resident, who is currently interning within the Naval Medical Research Center’s Science and Engineering Apprenticeship Program (SEAP).
Then there’s her knack for computer programming. Becker and three classmates were Top Ten finalists in the 2013 Technovation Challenge—an international technology innovation contest for young women—after developing an app concept, NaviCar, that streamlines community carpooling.
And yet, she isn’t completely left-brained. As a member of TJ’s drama board and Shakespeare troupe, Becker has performed in four school plays (her favorite role was as one of the Weird Sisters in Macbatman—a Batman-themed adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth). She has a quartet of languages under her belt—French, Hebrew, Korean and Russian—and is a member of SLAVA, the national Russian Honor Society.
When she’s not tutoring area elementary and middle school students in Russian, science or math, she helps instruct an elite tae kwon do team at Falls Church’s UMS Martial Arts (she’s a third-degree black belt)—all the while maintaining a 4.4 weighted grade point average in honors and AP courses.
—Kris Coronado (photo by Michael Ventura)