MY Camper John Chen: Engineering to address the issue of global warming
17-year-old MY Camper John Chen has been accepted to study medicine at the Cambridge University, but also geoengineering fascinates him.
John is of Chinese descent, but he was born in Australia, and grew up in New Zealand. He graduated last year from King’s College in Auckland, and will begin medicine studies at the Cambridge University in the UK later this year.
“I would like to train to be a doctor, and then specialise, whilst also taking part in clinical research. I aspire to become a leader in my field, both as a doctor and a scientist.”
John was contacted by the Royal Society of New Zealand, after participating in Young Physicists’ Tournament in China in July 2009, regarding the upcoming Millennium Youth Camp.
“I was interested in the opportunity to meet people – students like myself from all over the world, and scientists from Finland, and to take part in the Millennium Technology Prize award ceremony. I was also interested in going to Finland, and seeing the beauty of the country.”
John is looking forward to working on the projects in groups, and being mentored by scientists from Finland. He is in the Climate Change group and his project handles geoengineering. The topic was formed by his interest in utilising technology to address the issue of global warming.
“I focused on two major methods that have begun field trials – fertilizing the oceans with iron to stimulate phytoplankton blooms that will remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and injecting sulphur aerosols into the stratosphere so that they reduce the amount of sunlight incident on the Earth’s surface.”
John has been into science since early childhood. As a child he was intrigued by science books, and that has not changed; He still reads about a variety of topics: astronomy, medicine, psychology and sociology, in particular. In addition to reading, John has played the piano since he was four years old, and enjoys it greatly. In his spare time he also plays badminton.
Link: Millennium Youth Camp
Document: John´s plan for MY Camp (pdf)
Elisa Lautala works as web editor for University of Helsinki's Faculty of Science. Elisa likes all kinds of cultural events, good books, warm weather, and aqua-jogging.