Overview of Program

I spent all of my early life into my mid-20s dwindling in a sense of self-failure and a feeling that I was inescapably stupid and incapable of producing anything of true beauty. Since then, my journey through life has taught me that there is tremendous beauty in every person and that everyone is capable of extraordinary growth. When I became a high school teacher, I dreamed of discovering a pathway that would make any student passionate and capable of changing the trajectory of their destiny.

Throughout the years, I learned that people's dreams are often limited by the opportunities around them. When there are too few opportunities that allow a person to distinguish and differentiate themselves, and when a person experiences a few successive failures, they lose faith in themselves. I believe that the key to revolutionizing the education system is in bringing a richness of opportunities to the schools (for my ideas, see Teaching->Vision).

It frustrated me when my most brilliant students had a significant competitive disadvantage to those students in the surrounding richer towns. The richer towns had an academic culture that demanded students to continue developing their portfolios over the summers and many had parents with connections to amazing opportunities. At Waltham High School there were neither any summer opportunities nor an understanding that a competitive student had to devote their summer to projects that would showcase their abilities. When I reached out to local universities as a high school teacher, no one wanted to create a relationship with WHS that would lead to a program of opportunities.

So when I became a graduate student at Brandeis, in my first year, I created the WHS-Brandeis Summer Research Program. In this program, every summer, each student was paired with a Brandeis graduate student or postdoc usually from the neuroscience, biology, physics, and psychology departments. For 6-7 weeks, the students worked on inquiry-based STEM research projects in the labs. They also took 2 informal classes (described below) and wrote a final research paper on their projects, which many submitted as supplementary material in their college applications.

I am proud to report that the program was free to all of the students and that it operated for five years with mostly zero budget (one year I got a grant where I could give very small honorariums to the mentors). I am equally proud to report that I never rejected a student, as long as a student was truly passionate and dedicated, I admitted them no matter what their grades were. It brought happiness to me when I saw students who were not considered 'top' students based on GPA, nevertheless show tremendous growth and research ability in my program. Over the five years that I ran it, 40 students passed through. While I did not select for it, populations that are often underrepresented in STEM were well represented in the program: 70% were female and 65% were minorities (including several first generation).

In this section I share the steps I took to create and maintain the program. Perhaps the most important parts are how to recruit a mentor that you cannot pay (Step 4) and how to ensure that the high school students are appreciative of their mentors (Step 8, discussed in greater detail in Teaching->Mentoring). I also describe the two informal courses that I ran, of which Class #1 is imperative if anyone wants to run a similar program for high school students.

Step 1: University Approval

I began the WHS-Summer Research Program in the first year of the PhD program in neuroscience at Brandeis. At that time, I belonged to no lab because I was doing the standard lab rotations. Having no reputation or even a PhD adviser, starting the WHS-Summer Research Program was filled with anxiety, difficulty and the looming fear of failure. During one of my rotations, I remember talking about the idea of my program with that lab's professor, who said, word for word, "Are you fucking serious?" Around that time I also asked a postdoc if she would be interested and she said, "What is my political benefit?" Being a sensitive guy, those two encounters devastated me for an entire week. I felt alone and uprooted and uncertain whether I would flourish in the PhD program and their comments only furthered my self-doubt. Many times I felt like abandoning my idea...at the time, I didn't know whether WHS students would be interested or whether I could find even a single mentor at Brandeis who would volunteer their time.

As I tried to grow my ideas, more people dissuaded me and I learned that when starting something new, many people will inject poison into your dreams. Some will do it inadvertently by listing everything potentially wrong with the idea without providing any helpful solutions to resolve them. I began to realize why douche bag 'alpha-male' personality types can start new ideas, because they are narcissistic and oblivious to people's comments. As as sensitive man, my mind would continuously loop rejection and failure. I had no confidence in myself or my idea.

During this time, I also had to endure the nearly abusive and negligent behavior of the committee that overlooked my qualifying exam. During this exam, one of the professors kept using profanity, like "dude, fucking bullshit" (previously, when I came to him for advice, he only said, "do what makes your scrotum scrunch") and tried his best to insult and put me down. Afterwards, the committee recommended that I make some improvements to my proposal, which I did and one of the committee members told me that it was a great job. Then, weeks later, because they had forgotten what they had told me to do, I got the message that professors were thinking of kicking me out of the program. Rumors spread that I wasn't serious about the program. Eventually I received a non-apology which planted a seed of bitterness and anger that still exists within me today. I write about this, because this same professor was also the first doorway into making the program work. I learned that when the powerless want to create something, they cannot burn any bridges and often they have to bend down and take it....and that is how the program was born.

It is also important to note that starting a new program, in my opinion, would have been much more difficult anywhere else. Brandeis is a very unique environment and because it is small and chill, it is possible to start your own initiatives that would otherwise be trampled by bureaucracy elsewhere. Implicit in my program's existence was that it operated underneath the radar. As long as the program did not offer any university credits and did not make or take any money, it was unofficial and I had the freedom to run it as I wanted.

Step 2: High School Approval

Typically there can be significant bureaucracy and many levels of approval to obtain if you want to create a program with a local high school. Usually this involves obtaining the approval of the principal, K-12 science director and gaining the trust of a few teachers that will help you. Fortunately, because I taught at Waltham High School for 6 years, I knew everyone and they already trusted me. It also helped that I had a teaching license and CORI background check. After getting everyone's approval, my main contact was a wonderful biology teacher at WHS (Marisa Maddox). Here is a very informal email that I would send her every April.

Step 3: Recruitment of High School Students

After the program was advertised to students, my high school teacher contact arranged an informational meeting for interested students. Presented below is the document that I gave students outlining the program. Some people advised me to give students more formal looking documents, however, I felt it was important to express that this was an unofficial program. This was also the first level of selection, repelling the students who were only interested in the name of Brandeis on their resumes.

During the informational meeting, I talked about why I created the program and how it could allow them to blossom. I explained the necessity of building a portfolio of projects during their summers and I talked about the beauty of seeing a truth that has never been seen since the beginning of human time. However, I also spent a significant amount of time emphasizing the negatives of the program, even inviting students from the previous years to share their negative experiences. I did this because I wanted to scare off any unmotivated students. This strategy of emphasizing the negatives during recruitment and having a demanding application process, naturally selected only the most determined students. Because they were always few in number, I was always able to find enough mentors (with great difficulty) and I never had to reject a single student.

Step 4: Recruitment of Grad/Post-doc mentors

Recruiting enough mentors was one of the most difficult parts of making the program work. This is because graduate students are overworked and many are strongly discouraged from doing anything that distracts from research. Additionally, because I have no budget, I cannot pay anyone. This means that the mentors that volunteer are some of the most beautiful people at Brandeis, who truly believe in the ideal of giving back to the community and giving opportunities to students that typically have none. The two methods that I used to recruit mentors was 1. emails across the entire life sciences list serve (example email provided below) and 2. through one-on-one conversations with people that I knew. The emailing method would usually bring in 1-2 mentors that I did not know. Otherwise, I found majority of the mentors during one-on-one conversations at parties, classes and gatherings. Sometimes it would take me 1-2 years of gentle convincing before they became mentors. Therefore, the success of this program hinged on 'people skills' and 'networking', skills which I only developed at Brandeis when creating this program.

When talking to potential mentors, I would personalize my message to each individual but roughly here were my points:

• Because I could not offer any money, the primary reason people became mentors was because they believe in the dream of providing an opportunity to students that have none. For that reason, even more important than facts or words was the expression of emotion. The emotions I tried to express were my genuine and honest devotion to the program, the need to provide opportunities where none existed, the idea of building a true community and family between the public schools and Brandeis, and the realization that this mentorship would fundamentally and completely change the trajectory of these students' destinies many of which were on the verge of blooming and were desperate for any opportunity.
• The second reason why people considered becoming mentors was because many were interested in pursuing some form of teaching after graduation. To address this need, I assured them that my program was much more than just volunteering or mentoring. After participating in the program, they could write in their professional portfolios/resume that they designed an inquiry based STEM research program for high school students that had very minimal opportunities, by teaching the students how to comprehend scientific literature, design a controlled experiment, collect and analyze data and write a scientific paper. However, I informed the prospective mentors, that to achieve this, they will typically not obtain any useful work/data from the high school students for their dissertations.
• The first concern a potential mentor expressed was the amount of time mentoring would take away from research. I assured them that mentoring would not consume all of their time and that in one of the weekly classes the students took, I provided additional mentorship. I informed them that many mentors only meet for a few hours on a few days of the week with their students and some mentors could split the work up with other people in their lab. Additionally, if a mentor is busy, it is perfectly acceptable to reduce hours. I would emphasize that the first priority was the well being of the mentor.
• Another related concern potential mentors expressed was the feeling that they would not have any support if anything went wrong. I assured them that I would devote as much time as needed. In some cases, I even took over the implementation of the project and co-mentored the students. While this put significant burden on me, especially because I was also mentoring my own student, this reassured most mentors.
• The final concern potential mentors had was not knowing how to design a project. So I spent time brainstorming with each mentor the types of projects that would be easy to implement given their resources. There is more information on this in the Teaching->Mentoring section.

An example email sent to the entire life science and psychology graduate and postdoc listserves:

Step 5: Student Application

I made the application process difficult and time consuming so that only the most devoted and persistent students would follow through. In the application, I reiterate the negatives of the program. Then, I gave some mild advice on how to tailor their resume and personal statement for this specific opportunity. Once students submitted their applications, I would correct them and add significant revisions and ask them to resubmit within a week. I did this because I wanted every student to learn and grow but also see which ones were devoted enough to make the corrections.

Step 6: Selection Process

I have always understood but loathed the selection process in other programs, because inherent in its ideaology is the belief that there are a few strong candidates and everyone else are failures that should be discarded. Much of the university experience is like this. High school teachers are taught that every student is capable of beauty and every student should receive equal opportunity to grow. High school teachers believe in devoting themselves to every student. For this program, I did not want to reject anyone. As long as the student was irrevocably passionate and driven, I didn't care what grades they had or what level science they took. While most admitted students were advance placement students who had good GPAs, I did have some level-1 students and students with mediocre GPAs (as I had when I was in high school). To ensure I never rejected anyone, I emphasized the negatives of the program during recruitment and made the application process very time consuming and difficult, which naturally selected a small group of dedicated student.

In Step 3, I would visit WHS to give the students more information about the program. Typically 20 students would attend this meeting, where I would try to scare them by listing all of the negatives (and have students from past programs do the same). Usually around 10 students from this pool would submit the first round of applications, which I would review and add many comments for improvement. I would give them one week to apply the changes and resubmit. Some of these initial applications would be pretty bad but I did not want to disqualify anyone for an inability to properly make a personal statement or impressive resume, which is why I would give them a second chance. Typically 6-8 students would successfully do this.

Once I knew how many mentors to find, I would intensify my mentor-finding operation. Often this meant meeting with many people one-on-one and receiving many rejections. Sometimes when I became desperate I would load a post-doc mentor in my lab with two students. No matter what, I was always able to accommodate every student. To see how I propose to scale this program up, go to the Teaching->Vision section.

Once I found enough mentors, I asked them to give descriptions of their projects. Often this required that I do another one-on-one meeting with each mentor to help them tailor a project (for more details, go to Teaching->Mentoring). Below is an example of the email that I sent requesting the information:

After I received all of the project descriptions, I compiled them in a list and had students choose their top 3. Based on their preferences I would assign students to the mentors. The assignment would depend on their preference but also on how well I thought they would fit into the labs. For example, if a lab had never previously accepted a student, I would make certain that I would place the most devoted student in that lab, so that they would leave a very positive impression...allowing me to get more mentors from that lab in the future. Below is an example of the email that I would send the students with the project descriptions (I've only listed one).

In the final selection stage, each student would be interviewed by his or her mentor. No student ever failed this portion. The primary purpose for this was to give students experience with the interview process. Here is an example of the email that I sent them. In this email, I go over basic email etiquette and advice on the interview process. The only reason I include such a mundane email is because I want to emphasize the need to teach basic things to the high school students. Even though these are some of the most intelligent students, many don't know how to write nice emails or communicate appreciation. I will talk more about this in the Teaching->Mentoring section.

Step 7: Administration and Paperwork

Courtesy Appointment

For the high school students to become temporary members of the labs at Brandeis, I had to file a courtesy appointment with the life-sciences department. To do this, I had to provide each student's resume/information (e.g. address, email, citizenship, etc) and the signature of the lab's professor to the office.

Additionally, because high school students are minors, I should have obtained a CORI (a criminal background check) on every mentor. Unfortunately I was managing everything by myself and also balancing my graduate research, so I never did this.

Safety Training

Proper safety training for the students was crucial. All students took a general introductory lab safety course. Unfortunately the one offered to new undergraduate summer students was given too early, so the instructor was very kind and offered another class just for my high school students.

Once students were in lab, they had to take the online CITI training course which covered topics from ethics to management of data. Finally, students that interacted with animals had to take additional courses on animal safety and handling.

The Classes

In addition to laboratory experience, students in the program usually took two informal courses that I organized (Class #1 and Class #2). Classes#3-5, described below, only ran for one summer and were the result of collaborations with others.

Class #1: Discussion Section

Having a discussion section where I could individualize supplementary mentorship was imperative for the following reasons:

• High School students need significant structure which often does not exist in lab settings. These students were accustomed to teacher-led assignments and due dates. I would teach them how to persistently ask questions from their mentors and how to keep their own self-driven schedule.
• High School students are typically never taught basic skills such as how to email properly, how to communicate deep gratitude to their mentors, how to deal with frustration and failure in the lab, how to tackle an open ended problem, among many other issues. As a class we would explore each other's struggles and discuss solutions and ways to cope.
• I would often ask mentors for their feedback and sometimes mentors did not know how to gently convey a message to improve performance. I would help out in this. Similarly, I would help communicate student concerns to mentors.

To address these issues, I led a discussion section class for an hour every week, with the following objectives.

• Provide supplementary structure and direction for every student, each of whom had a different lab experiences.
• Create a feeling of family and community where the students could openly share their problems and with the class problem solved together.
• Discuss and explore the beauty of science above and beyond the monotony of textbooks and labwork.
• Give students the basic skills needed to thrive such how to find/read scientific literature and how to write their own papers.

Most of this class was dependent on each student and so every year it was different. Below I have provided some information on the more technical things. Some of the life lessons I went over are provided in the Teaching->Mentoring section.

Week 1: Welcome to the Program

• I would begin the first class by showing a powerpoint on my life journey(provided in the Teaching->High School section), where I emphasize that I overcame bad grades by collecting opportunities like the WHS-Brandeis Summer Research Program that significantly improved my portfolio. The purpose for describing my life story was to create a familiy-like bond with the class.
• I would cover the usual Administration, Logistics, and Safety Training topics.
• I would teach students why they should communicate appreciation to their mentors on every meeting (More detail in the Teaching->Mentoring section).
• I would finish the class by talking about a fascinating science story linked to my life and discuss it (for example, one year I examined a milkweed plant near my lab that was infested with aphids. There are many scientific papers on these aphids that describe fascinating the fascinating aspects of these aphids, such as their superclone properties). While going over this, I reminded them about how to set up a general experiment, reviewing the concepts behind an independent variable, dependent variable and control.
• Homework
  • To promote the family feeling, each student had to create a small 10 minute presentation introducing themselves while concentrating on a story of something they found breathtakingly beautiful but most other people find uninteresting.
  • Using the science story I explained in class (eg the true story of superclone aphids), students had to brainstorm 5 different experiments they would perform. In their description, I instructed them to define their independent variable, dependent variable and control. I emphasize this sort of exercise to show that no matter where you look, you can find something fascinating to study that no one else knows yet.

Week 2: How to do literature search (for more details check the Teaching->Mentoring section)

• I created a 'safe space' where students were allowed to share the struggles they faced in lab. To promote discussion, I shared my own journey and how I used to think that my continuous string of experimental failures were a sign of my unique stupidity...only to realize that majority of graduate students when through this phase. I also emphasized the importance of learning how to creating a genuine, loving and supportive community to survive graduate school and life and it is a skill that is key to leading a happy life.
• We go over their HW:
  • Each student gives a presentation on themselves and what they find beautiful.
  • We discuss in detail, 1-2 experiments that each student proposed from their HW. I never say they have a bad idea, instead I talk about how to enhance their idea and bring it to the next level of epicness. At this stage of their development, they are insecure, and I believe it is important not to criticize (for more details go to the Teaching->Mentoring page).
• I go over the basics of how to do literature search. This includes going to google scholar, trying many different key words and looking at what papers cite (and are cited) by a paper that you find interesting. I also discuss strategies on how to read scientific papers that are often improperly burdened by jargon.
• Homework
  • Using their new ability to do literature search, they find some papers on the aphids I discussed in class 1. They propose 3 more experiments. To guide them, I instruct them to write a paragraph for each experiment where the first sentence reflects prior knowledge that they cite (from their search) and the next several sentences are devoted to the independent, dependent variables and the control.
    • For each proposed experiment they also have to write a hypothesis and the implications of positive results and negative results. We talk about ideally creating an experiment where both positive and negative results can nevertheless lead to an interesting finding.
  • To motivate communication with the lab, each student must introduce themselves to 3 people in the lab (including their mentor) and ask about their life journey. I emphasize that one important skill is to create a cooperative environment in lab which often happens when your labmates know you better and feel as if you care about their lives.
  • Finally, for their homework, they have to express great gratitude and appreciation to their mentors.

Week 3: How to write the Introduction (for more details check the Teaching->Mentoring section)

• Students share their struggles in lab and the class and myself problem solve together.
• We discuss the HW from the previous week.
  • They share the 3 new experiments they propose. After a student shares his/her experiment, I talk about what I really liked about their experiment and add how their experiment would reach the next level of epicness. Students also share what they learned about people in their labs and we talk about how often scientists are misrepresented in media. Scientists come from different backgrounds, are passionate and participate in many activities outside of science.
• To emphasize that beauty and complexity exist everywhere, I share something fascinating that I find beautiful at that moment. For example, one year I found a garter snake and start reading about them. I learned that there was a dispute in the scientific literature on a curious behavior that some male garter snakes exhibited: they pretended to be female which caused a bunch of other male garter snakes to attempt to reproduce with them. I had students read the different perspectives and debate it and propose what sorts of experiments they would conduct to reveal the truth.
• In this class, I teach students a template that they can use to write their introduction. In this 'template', the first paragraph contains the big picture problem, often citing review papers. In the second paragraph, they give a brief overview of relevant prior literature, introducing key concepts that are important for their paper. In the third paragraph, they start by saying something like, 'However, to our knowledge no one has examined......" and then spend the rest of the paragraph explaining how they will address this.
• Homework:
  • Students are instructed to work with their mentors to write a rough draft Introduction section.
  • I also assign each student to make/buy a small gift for their mentors.
  • Finally, to promote multidisciplinary ideation, I have students brainstorm 2-3 ideas that mix science with an entirely different subject (eg art, business, music).

Week 4: How to write Methods and Results section (for more details check the Teaching->Mentoring section)

• Students share their struggles in lab and the class and I problem solve together.
• We go over their homework:
  • As a group, we go over every student's introduction section. Because most students have written the introduction with their mentor's help, the introductions are often very complex and full of jargon. I have each student slowly and loudly read every sentence in their introduction. I make certain to reassure them that they are doing a great job and that any suggestions I give are expected part of the learning process. During this process, I emphasize that communicating simply and clearly is a very difficult skill to master.
  • We spend time talking about the importance of multidisciplinary collaborations and going over the student's innovative ideas from their homework.
  • Finally, I go down the line and ask how each student has expressed appreciation to their mentors.
• I teach students what should be Methods and Results sections. From high school lab reports, many students tend to write their methods section as a list and tend to just put graphs and figures in their results section without any text.
• Homework
  • Students are assigned writing rough draft Methods and Results sections.
  • As always, they are assigned to express appreciation for mentors.

Week 5: How to write the Discussion section (for more details check the Teaching->Mentoring section )

• Students share their struggles in lab and the class and I problem solve together.
• We go over their homework:
  • I teach students how to write the discussion section and how it is different than the results section.
  • I also go over several life lessons (which are presented in the Mentoring section)
• HW: write out discussion section, prepare final powerpoint

Week 6: Present final powerpoint

• They present their final powerpoint to the class.
• We take a family picture
• HW: Finish final paper (I have more details on their final paper in the Teaching->Mentoring section) and give a very nice card and heartfelt gift to mentors.

Class #2: The Beauty of Science Lecture and Discussion

This class met once a week and was led by myself. I would invite different graduate students and postdocs to give a 45 minute interactive lecture on a concept that they found overwhelmingly beautiful. Afterwards, we would have a discussion. Initially students would be very hesitant to ask questions or share thoughts because they were intimidated by the university atmosphere. To open them up, here is what I did:

• I would begin the class by asking 'party questions' which everyone, including the speaker, had to answer. Party Questions are interesting and often silly questions. For example, I might ask, describe an interesting memory that you have about teeth (or a tree, or grass stains...etc). When asking these questions, if someone hesitated, I would just ask another question, so that they did not feel stressed. Often, these non-standard question would reveal a fascinating story that they had never shared with anyone.
• I would request every speaker to spend the first 10 minutes of their presentation on their life journey. This would humanize the speaker and also show students that many PhD students share similar struggles and doubts and are fascinating people (as opposed to the stereotypical nerd).
• I would also require every student to ask at least one question and share at least one thought. Additionally, I would teach students how to express interest and appreciation during the presentation. Most high school students are used to looking bored during class...and high school teachers have developed ways to psychologically deal with this...but lecturers who are doing this out of the kindness of their hearts are often looking for positive reinforcement.

At the end of the class, I would assign homework which was usually, "using what you learned in class, write about 2-3 new innovative experiments. Your writeups should start with one or two sentences on what you learned in class and then a description of your experiment which includes the independent and dependent variables along with the control. Alternatively, you can write about a multidisciplinary collaboration that mixes what you learned". We would then discuss this during Class#1 (described above).

To prepare the speakers, I would tell them to pick a topic that was beautiful and breathtaking. I emphasized that the speakers should stay away from too much technical or complex ideas (which is the tendency of graduate speakers) and focus on developing the background. I encouraged them to use as many demonstrations and visuals as possible and tie in anything they were talking about to real life. I also expressed that high school teaching is as much about entertainment as it is education.

From what I remember, some topics included: EEG, optogenetics, how researchers use viruses, why/how research on worms (c.elegans) can help us understand human diseases, how/when human perception is wrong, vestibular illusions, among many others.

Class #3: Biochemistry and 3D printing (only ran one summer)

This class only ran for one summer, when I had some funding from a SPARK grant (a Brandeis grant). It ran once a week for about 4-5 hours. This course was a collaboration between a chemistry professor (Daniel Pomeranz Krummel), a director of science outreach at Brandeis (Anique Olivier-Mason), an undergraduate student (Eduardo Beltrame), the MakerLab and myself. Many graduate students were recruited and instructed on how to create a lesson plan on different topics relevant to biochemistry. Every week a different graduate student would lead the morning lecture session. In the afternoon, the students would 3D design and print the molecules discussed in the lecture. At the end, they made a poster for the undergraduate poster session. In many ways, this program was a great success because it brought together people from many different backgrounds to provide a comprehensive innovative course that mixed academics with 3D printing. The students learned and grew remarkably. Sadly it never ran again for a variety of reasons: 1. I did not have any money, 2. the effort required to run this was very significant, 3. everyone had different views on how to implement the program which led to some mild tension.

Class #4: Python Programming Course (only ran one summer)

One year, one of my running friends from Brandeis offered to teach a course on python programming. So I gathered some students from WHS (some which were in the research program and others that were not) and they learned to program for free.

Class #5: 3D printing and drone flying/design (only ran one summer)

In collaboration with the Brandeis Makerlab (Ian Roy), one year we had a course on 3D printing, drone design and flying. This only met a few times over one summer. It was lots of fun and it also included students from middle and elementary schools, who came from a different project I was working on.

<3 Special Thanks <3

The only reason this program existed was because of the beautiful people from the Brandeis community who devoted their time for free. The contribution of the mentors was a breathtaking display of what makes this world wonderful. The hours that they spent on these students is true gift to the Waltham community. I wish so much that I could give something more than a thanks.

Mentors

Achini Opathalage

Anna Mukhina

Avijit Bakshi

Carl Merrigan

Charlotte Kelley

Christopher Vecsey

Claire Symanski

Clarisse van der Feltz

Danny Goldstein

David Hampton

Elizaveta Khlestova

Francesco Pontiggia

Jonathan Jackson

Joost Maier

Katherine Parisky

Marjena Popovic

Maitreya Das

Nadya Greenberg

Nate Miska

Peter Millar

Ramin Ali Marandi Ghoddousi

Ranjith Anand

Sumantra Sarkar

Timothy Wiggin

Vinay Eapen

Vivekanand Pandey Vimal

Lecturers

Abigail Noyce, Andrew Balchunas, Anna Mukhina, Brittney Gardner, Chloe Greppi, Eduardo Beltrame, Elizaveta Khlestova, Francesco Pontiggia, Guillaume Duclos, Heather Panic, Honi Sanders, Jerome Fung, Joia Miller, Jonathan Caplan, Ian Roy, Larry Tetone, Laura Laranjo, Lisa Payne, Lishibanya Mohapatra, Maria Genco, Marjena Popović, Michael Ghen, Munzareen Khan, Narendra Mukherjee, Nate Miska, Praveen Taneja, Ranjith Anand, Raji Edayathumangalam, Sacha Panic, Sara Haddad, Timothy Lauer, Vivekanand Pandey Vimal

Faculty

Angela Gutchess, Anique Olivier-Mason, Avital Rodal, Bulbul Chakraborty, Daniel Pomeranz Krummel, Don Katz, Eve Marder, Gina Turrigiano, James Haber, James Lackner, Jennifer Gutsell, Leslie Griffith, Nikolaus Grigorieff, Paul DiZio, Paul Garrity, Sacha Nelson, Seth Fraden, Shantanu Jadhav, Steve Van Hooser

News

Even though this program existed underneath the radar, it received some press coverage. Additionally, even though many professors initially dissuaded me from running the program, once it was established, it was written about in multiple grants (mostly to NSF) and mentioned in several meetings (such as when a Representative visited).

The official Brandeis internet magazine: http://www.brandeis.edu/now/2014/august/high-school-student-research.html

The student run newspaper: http://www.thejustice.org/article/2015/10/science-and-community

The official announcement for the SPARK award: http://www.brandeis.edu/now/2015/may/spark-winners.html

A blog on the biochem-3D printing course: https://blc.org/news-events/molecules-life-3d-printing-program

A few articles are initiatives that grew out of the summer research program:

• http://www.thejustice.org/article/2015/11/classrroom-cultivation
• http://waltham.wickedlocal.com/article/20151014/news/151017334
• http://waltham.wickedlocal.com/article/20160114/NEWS/160118367