Anastasia Roman

"When you're curious, you find lots of interesting things to do" – Walt Disney. I'm the kid you'll find everywhere; the theater, soccer field, my family's gymnasium, Renaissance festival, maker space, traveling, band, even faculty meetings sometimes. I thrive when exploring with other curious minds.

The MVIFI Fellowship is an internship with MVIFI to further the PS-12, educational R&D efforts in order to increase educational leaders' capacity to utilize design thinking concepts. The first video is a great example of my work where I give a 10 minute TEDTalk style presentation to 110 educators.

I have been doing gymnastics since I was born, and though I quit competing when I was 13, I've since been doing acrobatics. As I've aged I have also started coaching and have choreographed dozens of performed routines. All of these videos are of routines I created and I perform in several as a base.

The Innovation Diploma is a group of innately curious teens and adults that are pushing the boundaries between school and the real world. I get to tackle real world messy problems everyday, and use design thinking as a tool to move from problem to impact, while enhancing my skills as an innovator.

Since 4th grade I have preformed in over 20 drama productions including: "A Mid Summer Nights Dream," "Into the Woods," the American premier of "Seeds," "Mort," "Little Shop of Horrors," "Beast on the Moon," "The 39 Steps," "Shrek the Musical," and the world premier of "Welcome to Nightvale ."

Since 4th grade when I first joined band class, I fell in love with playing the flute. I have also taught myself piccolo since then and play in every band concert, including mentoring/playing with middle schoolers, despite not being able to take the class due to scheduling conflicts for 3 years.

NHS is an organization where students are inducted based on 4 criteria: scholarship, leadership, service, and character. I was inducted going into Junior year and served as Treasurer. We finished the year with $400 that we then used part of for an irrigation system for a community in need in Africa.

Since I was 3 years old I have been playing soccer, and as I got older I started playing for multiple teams including a travel team. In high school I've cut back some playing just for school some and my rec team that has been playing together since we were 8 years old because we just love the sport.

By being accepted into the Duke TIP program I was able to spend 4 summers at colleges for 3 weeks to attend academic camps. I went to New College of Florida for Number Theory, Davidson- Mathematical Problem Solving, Duke West- Sustainable Architecture, and Duke East- Spy 101: Cryptography.

During my junior year I became one of the inaugural members of the Vernon Vocals, my school's first ever a cappella group. We meet as a club a few times a week and perform about 3 songs at each of the 4 chorus concerts each year.

I have been a member of the same Girl Scout troop since the 3rd grade, and have gotten to participate in service activities ranging from setting up tents for breast cancer awareness walks to cleaning up the area at an animal and children orphanage. I've also earned my Bronze and Silver Awards.

The past 4 years I have served as co-founder and President of Kemps Khaos Club. Our mission is to encourage student-faculty communications and build a strong team throughout the high school with an entertaining card game challenge and competition.

Since I was born traveling has been a huge part of my life. I love exploring new areas and cultures, and am fortunate to be able to go on trips often. I annually go to NYC, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia , but I've also visited Florida, Puerto Rico, Greece, and Jamaica among others.