Meet this 17-yr-old who flies planes, has 2 degrees, works at Nasa

 

Still too young to vote but Moshe Kai Cavalin has two university degrees. He also flies airplanes but he is still not eligible to get a driving licence.

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’s in math from the University of California, Los Angeles.

This year, he started online classes to get a master’s in cybersecurity through the Boston area’s 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’s racked up an exhausting list of extracurricular feats. He just published his second book, drawing on his experience being bullied and stories he’s heard from others. He plans to have his airplane pilot’s license by the year’s end. At his family’s home near Los Angeles, he has a trove of trophies from martial arts tournaments.

Still, Cavalin insists that he’s 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 Taiwan and a father from Brazil.
“My case isn’t that special. It’s just a combination of parenting and motivation and inspiration,” he says after a recent shift at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. “I tend to not compare myself that often to other people. I just try to do the best I can.”

Moshe Kai Cavalin earned a bachelor’s in math from UCLA at age 15, and is taking online classes through Brandeis University, near Boston, towards a master’s in cybersecurity. He’s also working for NASA, where he is developing aircraft tracking technology.