Amoy Antunet got hooked on science at the age of three after coming across a microscope owned by her father, who was a college student.
The young whiz kid from Atlanta, Georgia, soon became her father’s “study buddy” Davin Shepherd, who was then 43, began explaining everything he was learning during his biology classes to his daughter.
Subsequently, the second-grader began experiments from a lab in her bedroom with a collection of test tubes, replica organs, microscopes, and chemicals she built for herself.
By the age of five, she had started appearing on the internet with her dad, conducting experiments and giving lessons from the lab.
“Donning a white lab coat, Amoy dissects mind-boggling topics including cell division, the heart, pH testing and her favorite – the brain,” the reporters wrote recently.
At the moment, her explainer videos on her Facebook page, Science For Children with Amoy Antunet, have over a million views.
Antunet, who also loves math and gymnastics, said she makes her videos because she wants to “help people understand different types of science.”
“When I was a little girl I said I wanted to be a pharmacist but now I want to be a neurosurgeon who helps people with neurological disorders.
“So far I’ve mostly learnt about the heart and the brain and I want to learn about Multiple Sclerosis in the future so I can help sick people like my aunt, who has it.
“My daddy will teach me.”
Shepherd, who is proud of her daughter, said he will continue to help his talented daughter to achieve her goals.
“At first I thought it was cute but then I started seeing how she really grasped some of it,’ he said.
“After a while it became something we did together. We would go through lessons and she would pretend to teach me, and that’s how we learned.
“It’s one of the things she does for playtime now. She will put on a lab coat and run to the lab and do all the stuff she wants.”
Antunet, who was invited to the University of Alabama’s Neuroscience Lab, has also appeared on CNN, the BBC and other major media outlets as well as conferences where she has spoken on Alzheimer’s.
She was recently a keynote speaker at a Youth Innovation Summit that helps students get more interested in the STEAM and the STEM programs.
“If you scratch out the science stuff, I’m actually pretty normal,” the 8-year-old genius said while advising students at the summit this January: “They should act on their potential, and if there’s something that you really like you should act on it.”
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