Shylene Mata, a Mary Louis Academy senior, is the Gold Medallion Hispanic Heritage Youth Awards New York Regional Winner for Health and Science, sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline.  Encountering setbacks and obstacles in her family, Shylene has learned from her own as well as her parents? experiences and turned them into successes. Shylene was an active member of a number of organizations, in and of school, and maintained an above 4.0 GPA, receiving recognition for her academic achievements as a National Merit Commended Student, a National Hispanic Recognition Program Scholar, an All-American Scholar in Biology, and a recipient of the National Science Merit Award.  She has participated with Expand, a state-sponsored peer group program for drug and alcohol prevention; and the Adopt-A-Grandparent club, where she volunteered in the geriatric unit of a local hospital. Shylene has also helped organize school-wide food drives for the victims of natural disasters in the Yucatan Peninsula as well as for the Annual Walter Kaner Party for handicapped children and senior citizens. In 2003, she had the unique experience of volunteering with the AFS Intercultural Program, going to Brazil and participating in their immense volunteer network. Her passions in life are science, in particular biology, and environmental studies. Shylene attends Cornell University majoring in Biology with concentration in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Neurology behaviour. In the summer of 2004, she participated in a field course in the Philippines with Cornell University under the department of international agriculture and rural development. Upon returning from this trip and for the rest of the summer, she did a research in aquatic ecology at Cornell Biological Field Station. In the present she is involved with a research study of the freshwater invertebrate Mysis relicta and its role in the Great Lakes ecosystem. She is also the co-president of the Science Organization of Latinos and a member of the publicity and newsletter committees of Women in Science at Cornell. Shylene received an award of superior academic excellence in the Cornell Pre-Freshman Summer Program and is in the National Society of Collegiate Scholars.