Student Story

Seven Years at Orblynx: Katarina’s Journey From First Project to Published Research

By Orblynx Academy · August 14, 2026 · Shared with Katarina’s permission

Katarina, Orblynx alum, during a visit to Amazon headquarters

Katarina joined Orblynx Academy in 7th grade. Seven years later, she is a sophomore at Johns Hopkins University studying public health, and she has seen the program from both sides, first as a student and now as an intern.

Along the way, the projects kept getting bigger. She worked with groundbreaking materials like mycelium, took up sustainability advocacy and biodesign, and stepped into leadership roles: BioBench, the student-grown mycelium furniture project now installed at Morven Park, and the LCWAG Girl EmPower Summit. She received a grant for an art-based community program that helps teens relieve stress, saw her TED-Ed Student Talk selected and published by TED-Ed, and co-authored research on expressive arts therapy.

“Orblynx Academy has profoundly shaped my education and my confidence to pursue a career in STEM. The environment fostered by the instructors is inspiring and encouraging and will undoubtedly make a positive, long-lasting impression.”

Katarina Walordy. Her words, unedited

Today she works in a Public Health and Biology lab at Johns Hopkins, and she is back at Orblynx, mentoring students who are exactly where she started.

Katarina delivering her TED-Ed Student Talk

Her TED-Ed Student Talk, selected and published by TED-Ed.

Stories like this one are why Orblynx measures its work in years, not sessions. Curiosity becomes capability. Capability becomes opportunity. And opportunity turns out to be contagious: the next cohort is already asking what they get to build.

The Journey So Far