The Who, When, and Why of iRIS
iRIS is a non-profit organization founded by a high schooler from New Jersey, Keertana Terala during the summer of 2020.
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Keertana is an active member of her community, and has been a volunteer at local institutes such as libraries, food pantries and emergency medical service, as well as hospitals beyond her township ever since her seventh grade with over 460 hours of community service. In the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Keertana has been a part of several fundraising initiatives to help frontline healthcare workers. She is also well known for her writing publications and even her TED Talks in the past couple years. Keertana holds leadership positions in two clubs at her school, one demonstrating her passion for public speaking, Co-President of TEDx, and the other portraying her love for science, Secretary of Science National Honor Society.
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In addition to this, Keertana has had exposure to clinical experience through University of Rochester's Mini-Medical School program last summer, and Northwestern University's Chemistry Research with Real World Application this summer. She has also had the opportunity to shadow a cardiologist and pediatrician in past months.
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iRIS was a dream of Keertana's, beginning in her freshman year. She has always wanted to make clinical experience available and easily accessible for students. Using the stay home order as an opportunity, iRIS was finally put into action.
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The goal of this virtual club was to allow students to be able to get a sense of the medical field, even from home.