Avantika Malla

Avantika Malla is a junior at the Academy for Health and Medical Sciences in Bridgewater. Avantika has worked with her mentor Dr. Pamela Saus and has proficiently used OCT's, visual field cameras, and retinal cameras to diagnose patients with glaucoma, hypertension, and optical neuritis. Last fall, she completed a program regarding the social impact of exorbitantly expensive health care on American society and published a piece regarding these failures. Avantika is the president of her school's Red Cross Club, a UNICEF Youth Representative, and worked as a student researcher at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University to study DNA sequences of Landoltia Punctata which she later published. Avantika is also independently working on research regarding anticoagulant, dicoumarol, and its function in depleting stores of vitamin K. Avantika is the captain of her Health Knowledge Bowl team which has received awards at the state and national level and she volunteers for Red Cross. She tutors students nationally as part of the Learn to Be program and in the winter of her sophomore year she raised $3,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Avantika aspires to be a neurosurgeon and continue encouraging girls into STEM.