Lauren Manzano

Latitude High School

Oakland, CA 94601

Hello,
My name is Lauren Manzano. I am a senior at Latitude 37.8 High School
hoping to graduate high school. Contact Information

lemanzan@ucsc.edu
I have worked incredibly hard, including these four years of school,
(510) 984-8649
through difficult life events,during the height of the pandemic. I’ve put all
of my efforts everyday into making sure that I can continue on my path to
college and my dream career. Even when the path hasn’t been clear or I
wasn’t sure what I should do.

I’ve gotten A’s in almost every single class for every single semester. I’ve
worked extremely hard every year to maintain my grades. The only grade
that wasn’t an A, was a B from geometry in the first semester of 10th
grade, the year we went online. By the second semester, I had an A in
geometry. I’m always making sure I do my work on time. When working
on multiple things at once, I’ll work on whichever has the closest
deadline, or is the simplest for me to complete. But I haven’t worked hard
in just the classroom, I’ve worked outside the class as well.

I’ve had 3 internships in the past 2 years, one at Lazear Charter Academy
and two at different paleontology labs at UC Berkeley. I learned about how
paleontologists conduct their work in a research lab. I’ve gotten to help
one of my mentors, PhD student Tara Lepore, with their study on the
neonatal line potentially being in other mammals. I learned to operate a
Keyence microscope, to do photogrammetry, even fossil preparation. In
my other internship, I worked with Liu Lab under my mentor Derrick
Leong. There, I learned how to catalog preserved fish and fossil
specimens, create a 3D model from CT scans of an alligator gar skull, and
synthesize complex information on my own to present to others. I’ve
learned many skills through my internships that will aid me in my future
searches for careers in paleontology and/or related jobs.

The skills that I have learned from this school and my internship have
prepared me for college and beyond. My skills will most certainly help me
with my work in UC Santa Cruz, and with breaking into a career within
paleontology. I hope what I’ve learned can help me kickstart my
exploration of all that paleontology has to offer.

Sincerely,
Lauren Manzano