Bio

Claire Kim is a senior at Bergen County Academies in New Jersey, where she is in the performing arts academy and is deeply involved in both music and writing. She serves as Principal Cellist of the New Jersey Symphony Youth Orchestra and performs with the New York Youth Symphony Chamber Music Program. She was selected for Boston University Tanglewood Institute’s Cello Workshop and was a finalist in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Young Musicians Program.

Across her work, Claire is drawn to the ways that stories shape how people understand one another. As Editor-in-Chief of the Academy Chronicle, she values creating space for specific student perspectives, while her research on AI ethics and psychology explores how people respond to new forms of information. She was also selected for the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, where she continued developing her own voice as a writer. That same interest in whose stories are told runs through her community work: through Stories in Color, she leads workshops on Black and Hispanic authors and their histories; through Clexical, she helps bring the work of contemporary classical composers to new audiences; and through Letter by Letter, she supports literacy through student pen-pal exchanges. She also leads civic literacy workshops through Youth Speak NJ. A Daily Point of Light Award recipient, Claire uses music, writing, and research to explore overlooked stories and the details that reveal how people experience a place or shared tradition.