Hello! My name is Jason Joseph Vayner, I am 18 years old and live in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, NY. I am (obviously) a student at Macaulay @ Hunter and my intended major is Chemistry and am currently on the Pre Medical track. Although Chemistry will be my focus in college, I am considering minoring in Religious Studies for personal knowledge of religions and cultures around the world. In my free time I enjoy swimming, chess, biking, playing video games and video editing for myself and other people. I have volunteered bi-weekly in a senior center for the past 3 years and I also babysit my siblings who are 16, 4, and 3. However, I’m not sure who is more difficult to handle, the toddlers or the emotional teenager…

My father is from Odessa, Ukraine and my mother is from Bobruisk, Belarus, both of which are former republics of the Soviet Union. Their parents took them to America to escape religious and cultural persecution in order to have a better life for their children. They fled from the USSR to Austria, then Rome and from there my family split up for Israel, Australia, and the US. My parents met in Brooklyn and I was born a year and one day after their marriage on August 15, 1995. Due to immigrating to America at the ages of 10 and 15, (my mother and father respectively), we speak Runglish at home, sentences that combine the two languages Russian and English,and my broken Russian speaking skills reflect that.