THE BODY ENQUIRES • THE MIND ENDURES • WEEKLY RUNNING DIALOGUES • ENDURANCE AS ENQUIRY • PONDERING TOPICS •
ABOUT YOUR
HOST
Background:
I started this club because two things have shaped how I see the world: running and philosophy. For a long time, they felt wholly separate. Academics and athletics are inherently different. Now I think they belong together. And I want to show others this realization I had.
I grew up in Orange County, California, and initially in Calabasas, California, so that is my original home state. I love going to the beach, cooking, and flying on my flight simulator (X-Plane 12). In August of 2025, I moved to Greenwood Village, Colorado, after spending the summer vacationing there and the surrounding mountains. The transition has been a large and real one. A new environment, a new team, and especially the mile high altitude (which I’m still adjusting to).
I’m currently a 10th grader at Stanford Online High School and a competitive runner on Cherry Creek’s cross country and track teams. Running has been a constant in my life since 6th grade. I started with Spartan Kids races, where I placed 9th at the Kid's World Championships in the summer of 2024. After aging out in the middle of 8th grade, I shifted fully into track. I then ran 5:06 in the 1600 and 10:10 in the 3000 that year and (barely) qualified for Nike Outdoor Nationals. In 9th grade, I ran 10:15 in the 3200 while competing for Tesoro High School, placing 5th at the varsity Sea View League meet. Running, for me, is both a competitive pursuit and a way to think clearly.
Academic and Intellectual Interests:
I take academics seriously and actively seek out environments that prioritize depth and intellectual honesty. I’ve been recognized as a John Locke Global Essay Competition shortlist award winner and given a commendation, and I was recently accepted into the 2026 Telluride Association Summer Seminar (TASS), held at the University of Maryland.
I first got into philosophy in 8th grade through a class, and it immediately stuck. What began as curiosity and seeming randomness about quantum theory, Buddhism, and an oversimplification of how to domesticate animals quickly became a central part of how I think. Since then, I’ve continued building on that foundation through discussion-based Stanford Online High School courses, external philosophy programs, and independent study.
My interest in philosophy is broad, but leans into certain areas heavily. I’m especially drawn to ethics and questions of cultural identity: how people should live, how values are formed, and how systems of power shape what we consider “universal” truths.
Reading thinkers like W.E.B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon challenged the frameworks I had initially encountered. Much of traditional philosophy education centers around dominant schools of thought like Kantian deontology, presenting ideas like the categorical imperative as universal and complete. But these perspectives often assume conditions such as autonomy, equality, and freedom from external control. These are not always universal. At the same time, my academic experience has emphasized discussion as the core of learning.
At Stanford OHS, classes are structured around preparation and active participation. They are full of reading, thinking, and then engaging in sustained dialogue, and this same format is followed religiously across classes (they do it in math, too, somehow). I’ve also participated in Ethics Bowl, where I’ve learned to analyze complex moral situations quickly in real-time, consider multiple perspectives, and defend/form cohesive positions on the spot.