I'm Aryash Shyam

The Beginning

Growing Up Curious in the Lehigh Valley

Growing up in the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, I always found myself paying attention to how everyday things work. I spent a lot of time reading on my own and noticing the details of the world around me, simply out of natural curiosity. Over time, I naturally gravitated toward looking more closely at how things operate, whether it was traffic patterns, the movement of a bicycle chain, or frost forming on a window. That way of observing and thinking stayed with me, shaping how I approach things and giving me a clearer sense of what I choose to explore and focus on.

Teen Scientist

Finding My Voice on Public Radio

Every first Thursday of the month, I sit across from someone whose work is quietly reshaping the world, and I get to ask them anything.

That's Teen Scientist, the STEM show I host on WDIY, Lehigh Valley Public Radio, and NPR, airing 6:00–6:30 PM. I remember the first time the ON-AIR light glowed red: a real scientist across the table, a page of questions I had carefully prepared, and thirty minutes to make the conversation count. I was a little nervous at first, but once we started talking, the excitement took over.

And it's a show with a legacy I'm proud to carry forward: Teen Scientist has earned three Excellence in Broadcasting Awards from the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters (2021, 2023, and 2024) and a 2024 Keystone Media Award from the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association — honors from the very community of journalists and broadcasters I admire most.

GreenBeam

Building a Robot That Skips the Chemicals

I kept coming back to a problem that seemed solvable: invasive plant species — plants that spread aggressively outside their native range — are typically removed using chemical herbicides that can damage surrounding ecosystems. I wanted to find a better way. GreenBeam is my answer: a computer-vision system (software that allows a camera to identify specific plants by sight) paired with a precision laser that can target and eliminate invasive plants without applying any chemicals to the surrounding soil or native plants. I built the core system in Python and trained it on plant imagery. The project earned Pennsylvania State Merit recognition in the 3M Young Scientist Challenge, one of the nation's premier science competitions for middle school students — an acknowledgment that the approach is scientifically sound and practically meaningful.

RacingGecko

Teaching STEM on YouTube, One Video at a Time

I created RacingGecko because I kept noticing that the best explanations of AI, coding, math, and science were either too advanced for students starting out, or so simplified they left out the interesting parts. The philosophy behind every video is simple: short, clear, and student-made. If I can understand it well enough to explain it clearly on camera, then the explanation is probably the right length and the right level. I believe students learn better from peers who remember what it felt like to not understand something yet.

Research & Documentaries

Asking the Bigger Questions

My research keeps pulling me toward two questions I keep thinking about: how life survives beyond Earth, and how we've learned to rewrite life's code here at home.

The first is space biology. Through the Genes in Space program, which challenges students to design real experiments for the International Space Station, I've been developing microgravity diagnostics: tools to detect and monitor biological conditions aboard spacecraft, where a single health problem is far from the nearest hospital. The second is CRISPR, the gene-editing technology that lets scientists rewrite DNA with once-impossible precision. I build computational methods to optimize guide RNAs, the molecular "GPS" that steers CRISPR to the exact right spot in the genome. Along the way, my essay on aerospace science won first place nationally in the NASA 2026 AIAA Essay Contest.

But the deeper I went, the more one question stayed with me: what happens when a technology powerful enough to rewrite life itself leaves the lab and enters the world? That question became a documentary. In Editing Humanity: A CRISPR Conundrum, I explore the science and the ethics of gene editing through conversations with researchers, scientists, and the people whose lives these emerging technologies touch most directly.

Documentary

Editing Humanity: A CRISPR Conundrum

Some questions are too big to leave in a textbook. What happens when we gain the power to rewrite the code of life itself, and who gets to decide how that power is used? To explore them, I created Editing Humanity: A CRISPR Conundrum, a documentary on the science and ethics of gene editing.

I didn't want easy answers, so I went to the people living the question. I sat down with a UCLA professor working at the frontier of the research, and with patients whose lives are directly touched by these emerging technologies. Their stories turned an abstract debate into something deeply human: hope, risk, and hard choices, told by the people who understand them best.

The film went on to win a Pennsylvania State Award at the National History Day competition. But the reason I made it stays with me more than the recognition: a technology powerful enough to rewrite life should not be understood by scientists alone. It belongs to all of us, and so does the responsibility for how it is used.