He’s got a keenness for neuroscience and now Luca Ririnui will get to pick the minds of some of the world’s top scientists at the London International Youth Science Forum during the next two weeks.

The Mount Maunganui College student has won a fully-sponsored Māori scholarship to attend the London International Youth Science Forum from July 26 to August 9.

The 16-year-old is among 500 leading young scientists from 70 countries attending the forum to gain hands-on experience and knowledge across the STEM fields.

Luca says the forum – being held at the Imperial College London – will open up the world of science.

“At school we just kind of do biology, chemistry and physics. It’s science but it’s quite confined to the stuff you do in the curriculum – you don’t necessarily see how that stuff would shape out in a career or further in university.”

Yet at LIYSF, Luca says: “We’ve got like 20 different lectures from top scientists, they’re quite specific and they’re like: ‘Look, this is a way you can use science and apply it’.” 

“It’s all quite cutting edge stuff that’s happening right now and applying it in the real world.”

Luca has had an interest in science since primary school where he was involved in robotics teams. Now, his core of area of interest is neuroscience.

“I love everything to do with the brain and how people work but I also love astronomy and chemistry and lots of different stuff.”

During the two weeks, Luca has selected brain science focused lectures.

“I’m going to visit a specialised brain imaging centre in Cardiff University and they’ve got one of the top-of-the-line MRI scanners for the brain. There’s only two in the world. There’s one there and there’s one at Harvard University, so that will be really cool.”

So what lies ahead for Luca in the science world? “I’m thinking of definitely going into science for university…I’m kind of at the phase where I’d like to do lots of different things.”

Meeting a mix of scientists and people from around the globe, Luca says: “That’s connections you’ll be able to pull from in a few years if you need in terms of careers so it’ll be really helpful to have that networking with a whole bunch of other science people.”