Denise Coutinho

Denise Coutinho is a junior at Warren Hills Regional High School. This past summer as a Waksman Student Scholar at Rutgers University, she conducted molecular biology and bioinformatics research on the duckweed species of Landoltia punctata. Her three DNA sequences will be published on GenBank for the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Denise is actively involved in her school’s computer science club as a mentor for the GirlsCodingWithGirls and KidsCodingWithKids programs. She placed second in Carnegie Mellon University’s Creative Task competition where she created a visual simulation of a beating heart using the Python programming language. Denise is a first singles player on her varsity tennis team and plays clarinet in her school’s wind ensemble. She enjoys reading, crafting, playing the piano, and volunteering at St. Luke’s Hospital. Intrigued by the specialties of cardiology, genomics and neuroscience, Denise aspires to pursue a career in the STEM heavy field of medicine.