Cornell’s Next Big Zoologist

     Abi Moores is a junior at Conifer high school. Like a lot of students, she participates in sports and goes to classes. Her sport of choice, since fourth grade, has been volleyball. Moores doesn’t know yet if she will be pursuing this for college. She is thinking about broadening her sports horizons, though, with tryouts for lacrosse later in the year.

      Something that may be unknown to most, she is the first generation in the US. Her parents came here for mining. Moores is not following in her parents’ footsteps, however, she’s planning on going to Cornell for zoology. She is very passionate about zoology, which she explains in more simple terms as “biology for all life forms.” 

      “I plan on going to Cornell. It’s in New York. It’s an Ivy League college, which just means they have really good professors. Right now it’s rated number one for its zoology program, so that’s why it’s so appealing to me,” Moores said.

     She had a grandfather from Scotland who studied birds of prey. One of the biggest reasons she was so enamored with his study was because she didn’t understand how animals and other living things in general work. When she was younger, she had gone to visit Scotland and got to watch his colleagues do an experiment for their work, “the fun stuff,” she called it. This was also a very big attractor, being able to actually work with the animals instead of only researching from far away. 

     “Even when I was little, I wanted to do something that they did but on a grander scale.,” she said. “I’ve always had a fascination with the world. I’ve had a fascination with the way things work because I partially don’t understand humans and I feel like animals are easier to understand.” 

     Unlike a lot of her peers, she’s wanted to be a zoologist since she was about six. Her parents are supportive, though they are surprised she never went through most kids’ stage of wanting to be an astronaut or firefighter as a kid. They are very proud that she’s been able to stick to a path and work with it for so long.

     “National Geographic had a lot of play in it when I was tiny. It was mostly things when I was little that had a heavy impact. I noticed that because of the house I grew up in, most of the things I had were of things I’d latched onto and so I feel like even now that still says something about my personality.” Moores said.

     When asked if she feels she has any sort of edge in the competition of trying to get into an Ivy League college for zoology, she says that Conifer’s AP courses, for example, AP Environmental, give her a certain edge over other people. She also talks about how zoology has been her passion since such a young age, she’s come to own a collection of encyclopedias and books given to her by grandparents and other family members for holidays and such.

     “I have so many like, encyclopedia books on animals. I’ve got the National Geographic ones. There are so many. I’d get them like every year for Christmas. My grandma is like ‘oh she likes that!’” she said. “It’s all had a very big impact on me.”