Elise Tao is a junior at the Academy of the Holy Angels and is the founder and president of the multimedia teen magazine Synthesis Publications. In August 2020, she established Synthesis as a platform for creative teens to have their work recognized by the online community and for young artists and writers to express themselves without bounds. Her poetry and journalism have previously been published in The Apprentice Writer and Sole Magazine. She is the recipient of an Anthony Quinn Foundation Literary Arts Scholarship and has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, YoungArts, Hollins University, Bennington College, Rider University, and Susquehanna University. She has attended the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio and the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop and is a member of the Disney Dreamers Academy Class of 2023. In her free time, you can find her catching the Sunday matinee and collecting vinyl records (and, of course, listening to Taylor Swift on repeat).