His Award Was Just the Beginning

As if earning a National Gold Key given to just one percent of all 310,000 participants in the 2025 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards contest (plus a best-in-grade title) wasn’t exciting enough, before Jacob Zhao ’25 began college this fall, he’d already been introduced to a leader in the field he’s studying thanks to a Brooks connection.

The AP Studio artist was honored on stage at New York City’s renowned Carnegie Hall this summer for his independent project, “The Wall.”

He traveled to New York with his family and met his teacher, Arts Department Chair Babs Wheelden there to collect his medal for the work — a dynamic art installation that required an understanding of plant and human cell movement, computer coding, motor building, wood cutting and crocheting.

“It was such a treat,” said Wheelden of the star-studded June 11 event, featuring celebrity guests including actors Anthony Edwards, Emma Roberts and Amy Ryan, as well as Tony Award-winning playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.

Zhao also received a unique honor during the ceremony: His “Wall” piece was featured on the cover of the program, highlighting all of the winners.

“It is huge to have this recognition,” said Wheelden of the aspiring architect. “His work is beyond brilliant in all of our school-wide competencies. It is creative, communicative, collaborative and full of cultural awareness and social justice responsibility. The idea and concepts in his design were born out of his compassion for humanity; his goal of improving people’s mental status and solving problems of social interactions. … I am beyond thrilled to see him celebrated for how he creates with empathy, courage and integrity.”

In the city earlier this spring, for a meeting of the Robert Lehman Art Center Advisory Committee, Wheelden had toured the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s New Lab (a collaborative workspace with prototyping equipment), thanks to board member David Stewart P’23. Within the New Lab, she visited Terreform ONE [Open Network Ecology], a nonprofit research group dedicated to sustainability via architecture, ecological design and public art and met its founder, Mitchell Joachim. 

Joachim is an architect and urban designer who earned his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — the very same university where Zhao recently began his college studies in architecture. Wheelden showed Joachim Zhao's work.

"He was impressed and asked that I connect him with Jacob," she said. 

Incredibly, the book that Zhao was gifted at Brooks’ graduation, when he won the prize named for previous chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities William R. Ferris ’60, was written by Joachim: “Design with Life: Biotech Architecture and Resilient Cities.”

Now introduced, Joachim and Zhao plan to meet up on campus at MIT, Wheelden reported, saying, “It’s such a fun, small world connection!”