Whiz Kid: Mary Sun

Name: Mary Sun

Age: 17 

School: Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST) 

Accomplishment: This ambitious junior was recently named a Regional Finalist in the Young Epidemiology Scholars (YES) Competition and will compete for a college scholarship of up to $50,000 at the YES National Event in Washington, DC this weekend.  

Key to Awesomeness: It’s not often that a high school student has both the drive and opportunity to take a simple observation or concern and turn it into a full-fledged research project with global implications. Yet, this was the case for Mary Sun, a Chantilly resident and junior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.  

Sun has a number of relatives, friends, and classmates who suffer from depression, the most globally prevalent psychiatric disorder, and noted that the vast majority of them were female.

“This...deeply troubled me,” she said. “There are so many social and academic pressures that hit females especially hard, and I wondered if there was some kind of gender manifestation in depression rates because of that.” 

Sun soon became aware of a phenomenon called the “gender shift,” which she explained as the “doubling of female susceptibility to depression as compared to males by ages 13-15” that continues throughout adulthood. 

In her initial research, Sun also discovered that alcohol and tobacco were correlated to depression. Intrigued by the misuse of alcohol among adolescents as a form of self-medication, Sun decided to explore teen alcohol use and differences between males and females.  

Sun’s final project, Assessing the Role of Alcohol Use to Address Gender Differences in Adolescent Depression, was entered in the 2011 Young Epidemiology Scholars Competition (YES). She is now one of 60 regional finalists who will present their research to a panel of leading epidemiologists and public health experts on April 15-18 in Washington, DC.  

“My goal in entering the YES Competition was to explore a specialized field of science that I had not been exposed to before,” Mary wrote in an email. “I wanted to conduct research on a project that interested me...and see how that compared to that of my peers across the nation.”  

Regional Finalists will be rewarded at least $2,000 each, and the top 12 scholars at this weekend’s competition become National Finalists who will compete for college scholarships ranging from $15,000 to $50,000. 

Sun used a program to analyze a sample of 2,202 adolescent twins and assess the effects of alcohol-related risk factors on depression by gender. The results of the male model showed that increased age decreased the probability of depression by 26 percent, while the female model indicated that high levels of peer alcohol use led to a 20 percent higher probability of depression. 

According to results of the 2009 Fairfax County Youth Survey, approximately 28 percent of high school students said they felt so sad or hopeless nearly every day for two weeks or more in a row that they discontinued some usual activities. Students who had engaged in substance abuse in the past 30 days were much more likely to experience depressive episodes. 

Consistent with Mary Sun’s research on the gender shift, the Youth Survey also noted that more female respondents reported feeling sad or hopeless, considering suicide and attempting suicide when compared to their male peers.

Dr. Craig Krause, a psychiatrist at Fairfax Mental Health, said that teen depression is both under-diagnosed and under-treated. “Depression tends to peak in the late teens and early twenties,” he said. “My belief is that it’s not recognized in the adolescent years and often becomes worse until it really interferes with a person’s ability to function at school or work, and that’s when people seek treatment.”  

Sun suggests more depression screening in female adolescents. She also advocates that the prevention and treatment of adolescent depression should be targeted by gender. 

At Thomas Jefferson, Sun is active in over a dozen extracurricular programs and organizations. She is a member of the Varsity Swim and Dive Team, the Founder and Co-President of Bioengineering Projects of the Future, the Physics Committee Head of Women in Science and Engineering and Project Coordinator for the Nanotechnology Club, just to name a few. 

This summer Sun will complete an internship at the National Institute of Bioimaging and Bioengineering and hopes to continue her current research next year alongside her senior tech lab project.  

At this weekend’s competition, Sun said she wants to, above all, “enjoy the experience of being together with a group of talented, bright students from across the country.”