Tara Lane
Tara Lane, a student at Whangarei Girls High School, who is always looking to challenge herself, has been selected for Youth ANZAAS which will be held in Adelaide.
I am a Year 13 student at Whangarei Girls High School. I am looking forward to this trip as it will allow me to meet like-minded students and to take the opportunity to delve deeper into science at a higher level. The knowledge I gain from this trip will be an important part of my academic journey forward towards University and beyond.
I am an active member of my school's community, in my free time, I coach a year 10 netball team and tutor two students in maths and science. I also volunteer for the local SPCA op shop and work for a local catering company. I believe there is something to be gained out of every challenge or opportunity that I face. Therefore, I strive to remain open-minded and take risks to advance myself and see what I can learn.
I grew up in Northland surrounded by beautiful coastlines and loved spending summers at the beach. It was this love for the ocean that made me dream of being a marine biologist when I was little, imagining getting paid to swim around looking at cool animals all day. The more I looked into the career, the more I became fascinated with the biology behind it. To this day biology remains my favourite subject, although I am now looking towards a career in bioinformatics, a field that combines my interests in genetics and computer programming.