Simon Ugolnik is a middle school student at Emerson Community Charter with a concentration on robotics. In addition to engineering, his academic interests expand into history and archeology. Outside of school he enjoys competitive online gaming, reading graphic novels and playing ice hockey for the California Golden Bears.

His mitzvah project focused on cancer awareness, demonstrating to his peers ways in which middle school students can contribute to cancer research to help find a cure.

Simon would like to thank Rabbi Aaron, Cantor Weiss, Shelly Kamara and Karen Porper for helping him to prepare for his bar mitzvah. He would also like to thank both of his parents, Faye and Adam, and his older sister, Samantha.