Paubox Kahikina Scholarship 2024
Aloha! My name is Gabbie Nakamatsu, and I am so grateful to be a 2024 recipient of the Paubox Kahikina STEM Scholarship. I graduated from Punahou School in June of this year, and I am from Honolulu, Hawaii. Next month, I will be moving to California to attend Santa Clara University, where I will be pursuing a Bachelor’s of science degree.
My interest in STEM first manifested itself as a natural curiosity to discover how the world works, and eventually turned into a passion for science. In middle school, I found for the first time that the things I was learning in the classroom had real life applications for me. Everything we were learning about the immune system and COVID-19 suddenly switched from biology lessons to our everyday life. Through the pandemic, I became encapsulated with human biology and healthcare.
When I made it to high school and was given the liberty to choose my classes, I took just about every science class Punahou had to offer from AP Biology to biotechnology and just about everything in between. During my junior year, I, alongside a good friend of mine, was able to found a club that supported high school students interested in medicine. This club’s main focus was to emphasize the “care” aspect of working in medicine, rather than the academic side that is much more commonly talked about. We brought in guest speakers who worked in healthcare and connected our club members with non-profit organizations for whom they could volunteer. Through this club, many of our members (including myself) volunteered at Hale Ku’ike — an assisted living facility for senior citizens living with dementia. Our members learned about just how much empathy a career in the healthcare field requires.
Over the summer between my junior and senior year of highschool, I was given the opportunity to attend the National Student Leadership Conference at the University of California, Berkeley. We spent hours in leadership seminars, medical ethics courses, diagnostic simulations, and skills labs. This not only solidified my interest in the medical field, but gave me exposure to many different specialties, which excited me about being able to go to medical school and do rotations in many areas.
I am extremely excited to be in northern California for college, as that is the birthplace of a lot of biotechnological innovation. I will be double majoring in Biology and Neuroscience, as well as minoring in Japanese language. I am also proud to be a part of Santa Clara’s University Honors Program. As sad as I am to be leaving the only place I have ever lived, I am excited to meet new people and see new places, and eventually be able to return to Hawai’i to serve the community that raised me.
Paubox’s Kahikina STEM scholarship is helping me to be able to pursue my education, for which I am forever thankful. This scholarship specifically aims to help students of Native Hawaiian descent who are pursuing a career in the STEM field, which is something I could have only dreamed for myself just a few years ago. I am humbled and honored to be able to represent Hawai’i and the community that raised me. I cannot thank my family, friends, Punahou, Hoala Greevy and Paubox for allowing me the incredible chance to chase my dreams.