Kai Greenlee

Kai Greenlee attended Kealakehe High School on the Big Island of Hawaii, where he developed an interest in engineering through his involvement with the STEM Academy. While there, he explored further through his participation in the robotics club, where he served as the CAD/Design lead for the First Robotics competition (FRC) and the lead for the NASA Human Rover Challenge (HERC).

In the summer of his junior year, Kai spent time exploring his interest in medicine by shadowing CAR T-Cell research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle Washington. Additionally, he connected with a mentor who later delivered a guest lecture at his school to hundreds of students on the prospect of becoming a physician-scientist. In the future, Kai hopes to improve the currently limited medical research education opportunities offerings on his home island, and recently joined an ISEF-alum-founded 501(c)(3) non-profit named Kids Cancer Foundation as Hawaii’s regional director where he aspires to expand outreach and awareness initiatives in the coming years.

During his senior year, Kai participated in the International Public Policy Forum debate weighing the importance of equitable access to pharmaceuticals against that of intellectual property, advancing to the Top 8 internationally and competing in the final oral rounds in New York City.

At the same time, he conducted astrophysics research under the direct guidance of Dr. Douglas Simons, the director of the University of Hawaiʻi’s Institute for Astronomy, during which he analyzed the iron absorption pattern of supernova progenitor candidate stars and compared it to stars that were structurally similar but were not expected to go supernova soon. His findings demonstrated that the two groups were statistically distinct, providing new insight into future progenitor identification methods.

In his free time, Kai enjoys reading, hiking, camping, going to the beach, playing recreational sports, and training calisthenics. At Columbia, he looks forward to majoring in biomedical engineering and conducting novel research at the intersection of engineering and medicine.