Meet Lilah Mehta, the Connecticut high-school student who entered a Yale lab at 16

When Lilah Mehta entered a biomedical research laboratory at Yale University as a 16-year-old high-school pupil, her main goal was to explore the biological questions that had interested her since her ninth-grade science classes. Two years later, the New Canaan resident and King School student in Stamford has reached an academic milestone rarely achieved before university: co-authoring a peer-reviewed neuroscience study with senior researchers at the Yale School of Medicine. Mehta’s academic journey and research work were featured in Moffly Media’s annual Teens to Watch 2026 profile series, published by New Canaan, Darien & Rowayton Magazine. The series recognised her as one of Fairfield County’s standout students. The high-school senior directly contributed to a scientific review paper published in the medical journal Current Opinion in Immunology. The study looks at the Kv1.3 voltage-gated potassium channel, an ion channel found on immune cells that researchers believe may help control neuroinflammation linked to Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. Working under Dr Srikant Rangaraju in the Department of Neurology at Yale School of Medicine, Mehta worke...