Nidal

Nidal
Malden High School
Malden, MA

Mentors:
Marcin Imielinski
Postdoctoral Fellow

Adam Kiezun
Computational Biologist

Nidal has been interested in science from a young age, influenced by his mother’s career as a physician and various scientific magazines he read as a child. His interests were predominantly in chemistry and physics until he learned about the dynamic nature of biology as an advancing field.

During his internship, Nidal modeled cancer cell evolution using a programming language called R. He hoped to recreate some of the patterns observed in cancer genome studies and suggest the mechanisms that may have caused the given patterns of complex rearrangements and mutations. Nidal’s experience introduced him to the world of cancer research and the interdisciplinary nature of cutting-edge scientific inquiry, leading him to consider a career in medicine. "Learning and applying science at the Broad is like nothing I've ever experienced in a high school classroom. The interdisciplinary nature of the work done here at the Broad combining computational techniques with traditional and groundbreaking biology has taught me that oftentimes two seemingly disparate disciplines can be used to better understand each other," said Nidal.

Nidal is the vice president of his high school’s speech and debate team and hopes to further explore the role of discourse in science and research. He also participates in a program sponsored by the MIT Muslim Student Association that reaches out to middle school students through direct mentorship.