FIERCE FEMALES

FIERCE

FEMALES

Whether its Plano’s awardwinning school districts or parks, there’s something in the air. There’s plenty of fierce females in the neighborhood, but this year’s lineup is getting an early start.

Meet these young women making strides in their respective field before they’re old enough to rent a car.

story Alyssa High | portraits Kathy Tran

How Victoria Makanjuola creates a community of mental health advocacy for her generation

A GEN Z FOR GEN Z

Network television. Podcasting. MTV honors. Helping transform silence into action.

Plano neighbor and Gen Z member Victoria Makanjuola already has covered a lot of ground in her life.

Her latest effort: Creating and operating a social media community dedicated to discussing mental health taboos.

“There’s still a communication gap, like an emotional gap between the older generation and our generation, and that’s definitely something I’m trying to fight through,” Makanjuola says. “Even at home talking to my own parents, I try to make sure that we see things eye-toeye even though we’re a different generation, and it’s so much harder than it looks.”

Makanjuola studied communication and media studies at Sam Houston before moving to Washington, D.C., to attend

George Washington University, obtaining a master’s degree in media and strategic communication.

As a CBS News summer intern during the pandemic, Makanjuola completed the program virtually from her parents’ house in Plano. That internship led to another as a features intern at CBS

This Morning. Makanjuola then was hired as an executive assistant for 60 Minutes Plus.

When that show was canceled after one season, Makanjuola changed her career path. During college, she’d created a blog and podcast, so she decided to direct her energy there.

These days, her podcast — Feel Your

FeelingZ — tries to enlighten, educate and talk about how Generation Z is coping with mental health issues. Makanjuola has completed two seasons of Feel Your

FeelingZ, covering topics such as vulnerability online, youth activism and stress.

Earlier this year, when MTV announced its Youth Mental Health Forum, Makanjuola applied, becoming one of 30 young people accepted to participate. In coordination with the White House and 18 mental health nonprofits, the forum discussed how to bring awareness and action to mental health through media. The program coincided with her former employment at CBS, though, so she was unable to attend.

“Of course, I was disappointed.… From that point, I just decided to pivot into doing things that meant something to me and that could help me create real change,” Makanjuola says.

Makanjuola recently began working as content and community manager with Better to Speak, a Black youth-led community media platform working to transform silence into language and action.

During the past year, the platform hosted workshops to teach journalists how to use storytelling as a tool for social change. The nonprofit also participated in various community events, including The Book Drive, The Period Project and others that raised hundreds of dollars for community campaigns and where creators learned how to incorporate social justice into their content.

And in her spare time, Makanjuola is active on her blog, As Told By Victoria, where she discusses a variety of topics, with much of her work centered around mental health.

“You never know what impact you can make even if you feel like: ‘What can I do? I’m just me. I’m nobody,’” Makanjuola says. “You can still make a difference and an impact. You can still be a leader wherever you are.

“So I’m kind of using my tiny space and the platform that I’ve created to be a positive influence.”P

THE TEENAGE BIOLOGIST

How a family illness led to Shriya Bhat’s microbiology research at Harvard

As Shriya Bhat entered her first year of high school, she got word that one of her cousins had succumbed to a bacterial infection. Though the infection is common, her cousin lives in a rural part of South India, where doctors did not have access to antibiotics that could help her.

“It was heartbreaking to watch the doctors prescribe more and more antibiotics, and there’s just really nothing we can do,” Bhat says.

Bhat was inspired by the experience and began looking at how the bacterial infection, bacterial biofilm, worked. She found that biofilm is a group of bacterial cells that congregate and are more resistant to typical antibiotics. The bacteria communicate with one another and regulate gene expression in a way Bhat akins to talking.

“I got really interested in the mechanisms of how this biofilm grows because it will sustain itself. And as I did more research into more cost-effective solutions, that’s when I started getting interested in specifically trying to target this bacterial speak, sort of intercepted the communication,” Bhat says. “So I was actually using ingredients that we typically use in South Indian cooking, and I was studying those natural compounds to see if they had any potential for combating biofilm growth.”

Using this combination of bacterial knowledge and Eastern Asian medicine, Bhat began to research compounds found in her own kitchen to see what could combat this disease. Bhat worked in a lab at Baylor Scott and White Health clinic and published a paper in the International Journal of High School Research.

The paper, titled “Generating a Non-toxic, Multi-pathway Targeted Combination Treatment to Inhibit Pseudomonas Biofilm In-vitro,” discusses her findings that demonstrate that non-toxic substances could be effective against biofilm.

Bhat spent her summer at Harvard Medical School in Boston with Dr. Steven Laurie, a microbiology professor, to learn more about antibiotic resistance and the tools used in a university lab setting. This research is a part of the Research Science Institute Program, where 80 of the world’s most accomplished high-school students come to MIT/Harvard Medical School. There she found students with interests across the STEM field, many of whom with interests outside of the traditional science track.

“Being a woman in STEM is just not being afraid to pursue whatever it is you want to do. I think that there is sort of a stigma against women who not necessarily do STEM or enjoy STEM but women who make STEM their entire life, and I think that stigma truly needs to be broken down,” Bhat says.

Bhat has other interests. At Plano East Senior High School, she has been location content research intern for the University of Texas at Dallas, publishing intern for Mission Impossible Kids, biological content research intern at UTD, an intern at iStart Valley, a student debate instructor, and founder and president at student-led nonprofit SySTEM for Success.

While Bhat doesn’t know what is next in her research and career journey, she aims to continue researching her cousin’s illness and working with biofilm — and of course to graduate high school.P

GOING FOR GOLD

How gymnast Konnor McClain is preparing for the 2024 Olympics

Konnor McClain started gymnastics at 18 months old after watching her older sister enjoy the sport. Long after her sister began pursuing other interests, McClain stayed invested, practicing twice daily and dedicating her life to making it to the top.

She started in the Junior

Olympic program in 2015 at the age of ten, where she competed in HOPES, or preelite, competitions and placed second on balance beam, fourth in all-around, fifth on vault and seventh on floor exercise.

“It was really just fun for me all those years,” McClain says. “I always loved going to the gym, practicing and meeting new people.”

In 2017, McClain qualified for junior elite status and competed at the KPAC National Qualifier,

Parkettes National Qualifier,

American Classic and U.S.

Classic with other well-known gymnasts Kayla DiCello and

Irina Alexeeva.

By 2018 she had a silver medal in floor exercise at the

Buckeye National Qualifier and International Gynix behind

Alexeeva and second in the all-around at the American

Classic behind DiCello. In the 2018 U.S. National Gymnastics

Championships, McClain finished fifth in the all-around and won gold on the balance beam. This success launched her career, and McClain was added to the national team.

While on the national team,

McClain competed at the 2019

City of Jesolo Trophy in Italy where the team won silver and she won gold in the all-around

and bronze on the uneven bars and floor exercise. She was on a roll. She continued collecting medals at the Junior World Championships, the U.S. Classic and U.S. National Championships and was added to the junior national team.

In her last year as a junior elite, McClain competed at the International Gymnix where the team won gold and she won silver in the allaround and gold in all four event finals. It was time to move to the senior elite.

McClain made her debut at the 2021 Winter Cup, where she got the third-highest score on vault and fourth on beam. She was featured in the Peacock docuseries Golden: The Journey of USA’s Elite Gymnasts.

McClain moved to Plano to train at WOGA under Valeri Liukin in 2021; she settled down and made a family out of her fellow gymnasts. Though she has always been homeschooled, she attend homecoming in Plano with her WOGA friends.

After settling into WOGA and Plano life, McClain competed at the 2021 World Championships and was re-added to the national team.

“Going there and traveling, literally across the world, was so fun,” she says. “Competing on the world stage and where everybody could watch was just a crazy experience and one of the best experiences.”

In December, her father and grandmother died, and McClain reached out to Sunisa Lee, a friend and Tokyo 2020 Olympic gold medalist, to discuss how to continue working through heartbreak.

After an emotional reset and a few more months of practice, she headed to the Winter Cup Challenge, where she sported an “MM” patch on her uniform in reference to her father. At the 2022 Winter Cup, McClain won the allaround competition. Other accolades this year include gold at the DTB Pokal Team Challenge and the 2022 City of Jesolo Trophy.

McClain is looking to the future and aims to compete in the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

“I’m definitely adding upgrades to my routines and getting more consistent each year,” McClain says. “Next year is a really important year to prepare all my routines and stay consistent building into 2024.”P

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