Makenna Turner


Makenna Turner is a student researcher and Stanford University admit. Turner is a social worker and engineer, who has worked with numerous academic institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Denver and Colorado School of Mines. Turner has also published theses and has worked with professors in the review of PhD research. She has also heavily contributed to starting a Black Student's Union.

Early life and education

Turner lives in Boulder, Colorado. She started volunteering from a young age, as a lunch room assistant. She also attended the University of Colorado Boulder's CU Discovery program, studying engineering, astronomy, marine biology and chemistry. She attended other courses in Boulder, whilst attending Middle School and High School. She represented Butterfly Pavilion as a teen ambassador. As a high school student, she participated in softball, basketball, soccer and track and field.

Career as an engineer and researcher

In June, 2017, Turner co-founded a start-up called Soul Dynamix. She helped design the prototype for wearable technology, aimed at distance athletes. She also developed the working prototype for the technology that would go into a shoe. There she managed and headed computer engineering.
In August 2017, Turner interned at Floodgate, Inc as a product design intern. In June 2018, she started working at the University of Colorado Boulder as a research assistant with Professor Ben Shapiro. She worked in the Lab of Playful Computation, performing simulations in Sports engineering, on an app to provide user feedback. She will be attending Stanford University, in fall of 2020.
She also worked on Project Illuminate, a project to give better scholarship and educational opportunities to aspiring college students.

Puerto Rico Initiative

Turner, worked in damage control when Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria, left Puerto Rico and its educational institutions devastated. She helped deliver essential school supplies, to students whose schools and colleges were left severely impacted. Her primary goal, was to not risk the lowering of the graduation rate of students in Luquillo, a poverty-stricken municipality in Puerto Rico. For this, she received state-wide recognition, on KUSA 's 9News.