Kylie Jewelz Robinson, 15, earns scholarship to the inaugural Mayo Clinic Pre-College Healthcare Academy — one of only 100 students selected nationwide — while advancing in Environmental Leaders of Color (ELOC), AI & Technology Program.
By: Dr. Diana K. Williams and Marvin V. Church
Kylie Jewelz Robinson was in the room when everything changed. She watched her mom experience a frightening episode during a prenatal appointment — a complication that could affect a woman’s pregnancy condition. Kylie was not yet a teenager. But in that moment, something crystallized. She would become a doctor. She would make sure no woman in her community faced that kind of fear without someone fighting alongside her.
That clarity of purpose has carried Kylie, now 15 and a rising junior at the Mount Vernon STEAM Academy, all the way to Rochester, Minnesota — where she will spend two weeks this summer as one of just 100 high school students in the nation selected for the inaugural Pre-College Healthcare Academy, a new program hosted by the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science at the University of Minnesota Rochester. She earned her spot on a full scholarship with the support of her parents, who researched programs that supported Kylie’s dream.
It is, by any measure, an extraordinary achievement. Mayo Clinic is consistently ranked the No. 1 hospital in the world. The Pre-College Healthcare Academy is the first of its kind. And Kylie Robinson — the second of four children born to Jamal Robinson and Stephanie Clarke, a Mount Vernon native who attended Pennington Elementary School and now carries honor roll status at the STEAM Academy — is one of the young people who made the cut.
I want to be the Doctor Who shows you
In her application essay to the Academy, Kylie described her motivation with a directness that belies her age:
“My goal is to become an OB-GYN and reproductive scientist to support women who are expecting or trying to have children. I have always been passionate about medicine and helping others, especially women. My interest in this field began when my mother developed preeclampsia while pregnant with my youngest sister. During a medical appointment, she experienced an episode that frightened me. That moment showed me how important proper care is during pregnancy. It inspired me to become a doctor to understand better why it happened.”
She continued: “I am aware of the disparities in healthcare. Many women in my community lack proper healthcare support. I am determined to help change this by providing equitable care. In the future, I hope to open a birthing center where women feel safe and respected throughout their pregnancy journey.”
The vision is precise and personal: a birthing center rooted in her own community, where the women who look like her mother are never an afterthought in their own care.
Where Medicine Meets Technology
What makes Kylie’s profile especially striking is that she is not pursuing medicine alone. This year, she enrolled in the Advanced Computer Program offered by Environmental Leaders of Color (ELOC), a Westchester County-based environmental justice nonprofit dedicated to fostering diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. ELOC focuses on empowering young people to become leaders and change-makers in their communities by providing access to quality education and professional development.
Kylie is enrolled in the AI Machine Learning and AI Infrastructure track, which places her at the frontier of how artificial intelligence is reshaping industries, including healthcare. Additionally, ELOC’s board of directors consists of several doctors who graduated from prestigious institutions, including Howard Medical and Dental Schools, Weill Cornell Medical School, the University of Pennsylvania’s dental program, and Columbia University’s postdoctoral program. These board members are dedicated to mentoring ELOC students interested in pursuing careers in medicine and dentistry. Kylie is looking forward to being mentored by ELOC medical professionals.
ELOC serves students across six Westchester municipalities: Mount Vernon, Yonkers, New Rochelle, Port Chester, Ossining, and Peekskill. Its curriculum is specifically designed to bring students of color into fields where they have historically been underrepresented — not as passive users of technology, but as architects of it.
“Kylie exemplifies exactly what ELOC’s Advanced Computer Program and other programs were designed to cultivate,” said Dr. Diana K. Williams, DDS/MBA, ELOC’s Executive Director. “She doesn’t separate her interest in health from her interest in technology, and she doesn’t separate either of those from her identity as a young Black woman from Mount Vernon. She understands, at fifteen, that all of it is connected. That kind of thinking is going to change communities.”
The intersection of health and technology is pivotal. AI is already transforming obstetrics and maternal health — from predictive tools that flag high-risk pregnancy cases to data systems that help physicians identify disparate outcomes by race. A young woman who understands both the clinical and the computational dimensions of that problem is precisely the kind of future physician that medicine needs.
Inside the Academy
The Mayo Clinic Pre-College Healthcare Academy is poised to offer Kylie invaluable experiences and insights as she navigates her path toward becoming a physician. With her combined passion for healthcare and technology, she represents the future of medicine — where empathy and expertise converge to benefit communities, especially those often overlooked.
By embracing her diverse interests and experiences, Kylie is not only preparing for her own future but is also laying the groundwork for impactful change that extends beyond her personal ambitions. Her journey is a reminder of the profound connection between healthcare and community empowerment, an ethos that ELOC fosters among its students. As Kylie returns to Mount Vernon in the Fall as a junior. The birthing center she described in her application essay is still years away. But the groundwork, laid in a city that is too often overlooked, is already under construction.
Here is a powerful quote from Kylie, a fifteen-year-old future physician: “When I received the news that I had been accepted into the Mayo Clinic program, I froze. My dad told me when I got home from school, and I was shocked and then happy because it confirmed that God heard and agreed with my prayers and what I want to do with my life.”
“I want all the boys and girls of Mount Vernon to know that we can achieve anything that we put our time and heart into with faith.”
