“Science isn’t just a career path—it’s a way to build a better world together.”
– Charlotte Rosario 

Charlotte Rosario, a high school student and researcher from San Mateo, California, joins us on Closing the Gap to discuss her groundbreaking study on the intersection of gender identity, brain structure, and mental health in transgender teens. Charlotte shares her journey that led her to this research, the implications of her findings for mental health care, and the importance of allyship in research.

This young scientist is also an athlete, playing varsity soccer, as well as an artist specializing in photography.  Charlotte is also a natural leader, heading her school’s Existential Philosophy Interdisciplinary Conversations club.

Closing the Gap (CTG): How has your education prepared you for the research you’re working on today? 

Charlotte Rosario (CR): I was on an all-girls FTC robotics team throughout middle school, where I learned to code autonomous robotics systems in Java. I had also attended various Girls Who Code workshops and camps. I started taking lots of computer science and STEM classes in high school.

My first introduction to research was through working with a PhD student at Stanford doing experimental psychology research with VR headsets. I helped with data analysis and processing for her multi-year research project.

I then joined the Hong Lab of Stanford’s Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Science Research in the summer of 10th grade, where I initially worked as one of three high school interns among other candidates, including Stanford undergrads, preprocessing neuroimaging data for their ongoing longitudinal study. I was overseen by the principal investigator, Dr. Hong, and clinical research coordinator Mel, with weekly check-ins. Within three months, I began an independent project. I occasionally consulted with Mel and Dr. Hong for guidance on study design and accessing lab data, but conducted the research independently.

CTG: What are you researching?

CR: I studied links between gender identity, mental health, and brain volume. Changes during puberty can shape brain areas linked to depression and anxiety. Yet, researchers don’t know why brain structure differs by gender identity or how it affects mental health. This is especially the case for transgender youth, a group that has received little scientific attention. My study examines how puberty-related brain changes are linked to anxiety and depression in transgender teens compared to their cisgender peers. By analyzing brain scans and mental health surveys, I found that transgender teens not only had more signs of anxiety and depression than their peers but also had distinct differences in brain areas, such as the thalamus, a region of the brain involved in mood. For example, transgender boys with more volume in the right thalamus had more symptoms of depression. These findings highlight the unique mental health challenges faced by transgender youth and underscore the importance of understanding how gender identity and brain development are connected. By focusing on this underexplored area, my research can help clinicians create more personalized and effective mental health care that ensures every teen receives the support they need during a critical stage of growth.

CTG: How did you become interested in your current field, and what inspired you to pursue it?

CR: After losing my dad to suicide in seventh grade, I became determined to understand the roots of depression. Discovering that mental illness ran in his family—and thus influenced my own genetic identity—I was drawn to psychiatry and its implications during critical developmental stages like puberty, which I was experiencing at that time. Watching friends and classmates, especially my peers who were transgender, struggle with mental health challenges deepened this drive, especially as I began seeing how depression intersects with identity, gender, and neurodevelopment. Witnessing the effects of the global youth mental health crisis in my own community only fueled my resolve to understand mental health disorders—not just for myself, but to help those around me.

CTG: What do you think young women and gender minorities should know about your area of expertise? How can this help them as they prepare for the workforce?

CR: One of the most powerful things you can do is choose a research topic that’s personal and meaningful to you. For me, that meant focusing on populations that are often overlooked—people whose stories deserve to be told through data—and in this case, I focused on transgender youth. When I center my research on other marginalized communities, I find that I’m also advocating for myself. It’s this cycle of mutual uplift.

You don’t have to belong to a specific identity to care about a community. You don’t have to be trans to support trans people. You don’t have to be a woman to advocate for gender equity. Research is one way we can help each other feel seen—and in doing so, we create space for ourselves too.

CTG: What advice can you give to young women and gender minorities who may be trying to navigate a career path similar to yours?

CR: Your voice matters—even when it feels like you’re the only one in the room who sees things a certain way. I’ve been mentored by people from different backgrounds, including a trans scientist and a male PI (project investigator/ aka head of lab). The reality is, you won’t always see someone who looks like you in leadership—but that doesn’t mean you don’t belong. You might even end up being the role model you were looking for.

And if it feels hard to even enter the research space, that’s exactly why your presence is so necessary. It’s a sign that people like you are still underrepresented, still under-researched. That’s why your work matters. That’s why I care so deeply about research on trans youth—because the lack of studies is itself a call to action. We need more people from all backgrounds to step up, listen, and support.

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