Once In A Lifetime!

You know you have been teaching for a while when you meet a young girl so passionate for science (and chemistry, if I may add) in her early teens as a 9th grader wanting to do a science fair project on "Electrolysis of Water"; and, four year later leaves the annals of Hightower High School with so much accomplishment to fill a post-graduate's resume that all you can say is, "I will never have a student like her ever again!". This is how I feel having met, worked with, and mentored Neerja for the past 4 years.

Her name has become synonymous to "Science Fair", "ISEF", "ISWEEEP", "NERD", "GEEK"; oh, wait, that last one is really her! :) Everyone in school wanted to be like her and do science fair which made life easier for me as science fair coordinator. Everyone wanted to look for research opportunities somewhere to emulate her success which made my life miserable. What almost everyone didn't realize is that her main accomplishment was NOT winning all these accolades. It was the character she developed in the process. Not many knows that she was also into theater and worked behind the scenes. I'd say its fitting since behind the scenes of the trophies and the medals, there was determination, pain-staking sacrifices, commitment and humility at work. Sorry to dash most students hopes when I say that she is just like any other person who probably experienced more failures than successes! That is how it is in research and in life. What made her extraordinary is her will to stand up every time she falls. There was no quit in her. In the end, she reaped the rewards.