Defining Excellence with Amanda Boston, PhD (XXII) and Joseph Myrie, MD (XXIV)

Joseph: My favorite Prep memory is working as an Advisor for two summers. Spending one on one time with the students in my unit was a great to give back to Prep and to work with students who were in the same position I was in only a few years prior. 

Amanda: One of my favorite memories from the Preparatory Component is the trip we took to the Hotchkiss School. After working so hard for 14 months it was so much fun celebrating our accomplishments, competing against other units, coming up with songs and skits, and learning more about Prep’s legacy and our place in it. It was a beautiful way to cap off what ended up being one of the most formative experiences of our lives. 

Joseph: One of the Collegiate moments that remains with me is from my junior year chemistry class. We had a demonstration of the triple point of water - seeing water in the solid, liquid, and gaseous states simultaneously was amazing. I think it really started me on a path that led to taking AP Chemistry in my senior year and then majoring in chemistry at the Univ. of Pennsylvania. 

Amanda: A favorite Poly Prep memory is my exchange trip to China during the spring of my junior year. I had never traveled outside of North America or taken Mandarin -- Poly hadn’t yet added it to the curriculum -- so I was completely out of my element. Thankfully, fellow Prep kid Ian Pearson (XXII) was there with me! Over the course of the trip, we did a homestay, rode bikes to school in Nanjing, walked the Great Wall, and saw and experienced so many awesome things above and beyond what we could have imagined. The trip definitely fed my love for travel and my appreciation for other cultures. I’m so grateful that Poly gave me that opportunity. 

I've had several mentors that helped me get to where I am today. My first exposure to the healthcare environment was through my mom who is a nurse. I would spend time with her at her job in the morning before I went to school. I also had an excellent pediatrician who was a great mentor. When he heard I was interested in science, he encouraged me to pursue medicine. My most influential mentor, Dr. Miriam Schechter, is the biggest reason why I'm a pediatrician. I met her during my third year rotation at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore where she was the clerkship director, and I worked with her in the newborn nursery. Later she became my pediatric mentor and advised me on residencies to apply to, and helped me perfect my application. Her unwavering belief in me throughout the process is a huge part of my success. 

Personally, medicine allows me to interact with and support patients during what is often one of the most vulnerable moments of their lives. I choose pediatrics because I want to help children grow into healthy adults. There are also great opportunities for community advocacy in pediatrics which is something that I truly care about. 

I was fortunate to have professors of color who encouraged me and told me they believed I could be successful if I took my studies to the next level. They assured me of the value of my unique voice and perspectives in predominantly white institutions and disciplines. They also encouraged me to use those tools as starting points for developing sophisticated questions and contributing to scholarship and other conversations on issues about which I was passionate. My work gives me a platform to center marginalized people, to use education as a tool to achieve social justice, and to mentor and advocate for underrepresented students and faculty just as my professors mentored and advocated for me. 

For my dissertation, I decided to write about race and gentrification and its consequences for Black Brooklyn because I love my community and I’m fascinated – and also worried -- by the changes that are transforming it. Although gentrification has been a hot topic for some time, people who are most vulnerable to its worst consequences – especially poor people and people of color – are still mostly talked about, rather than talked to. Writing about the struggles and triumphs of Black Brooklynites has given me an opportunity to fight against the erasure and misrepresentation of black history and community, and highlight the vibrancy of black life and culture. It also enables me to illuminate the structures of inequality that have made people like those who have nurtured and sustained me so vulnerable to gentrification and other disorganizing forces.