2 degrees, NASA job, and a writer at 17
Print Edition
Moshe Kai Cavalin has two university degrees, but he鈥檚 too young to vote. The American flies airplanes, but he鈥檚 too young to drive a car alone.
Life is filled with contrasts for Cavalin, a 17-year-old from San Gabriel, California, who has dashed by major milestones as his age seems to lag behind. He graduated from community college at age 11. Four years later, he had a bachelor鈥檚 in math from the University of California.
This year, he started online classes to get a master鈥檚 in cybersecurity through the Boston area鈥檚 Brandeis University. He decided to postpone that pursuit for a couple of terms, though, while he helps NASA develop surveillance technology for airplanes and drones.
Between all that, he鈥檚 racked up an exhausting list of extracurricular feats. He just published his second book, drawing on his experience being bullied and stories he鈥檚 heard from others. He plans to have his airplane pilot鈥檚 license by the year鈥檚 end. At his family鈥檚 home near Los Angeles, he has a trove of trophies from martial arts tournaments.
Still, Cavalin insists that he鈥檚 more ordinary than people think. He credits his parents for years of focused instruction balanced by the freedom to pick his after-school activities. His eclectic interests stem from his cultural heritage, he said, with a mother from Chinese Taipei and a father from Brazil.
鈥淢y case isn鈥檛 that special. It鈥檚 just a combination of parenting and motivation and inspiration,鈥 Cavalin says after a recent shift at NASA鈥檚 Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.
His parents say he was always a quick study. At 4 months, he pointed to a jet in the sky and said the Chinese word for airplane, his first word. Cavalin hit the limits of his home schooling after studying trigonometry at age 7.
In conversation, Cavalin is unflappable, at least until he discusses his distaste for being called a certain word: 鈥淥ne word I don鈥檛 take too kindly is genius,鈥 he said. 鈥淕enius is just kind of taking it too far.鈥
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