Mike Selberg ’08 shows the Balmer Series of the hydrogen spectra. PHOTO/Mike Tsai '10

Eight seniors-- Lauren Provini, Peter Renehan, Abby Lee, Christopher Douglas, Lisa Fazzino, Thomas Ryoo, William Mullen, and Mike Selberg-- gave presentations at the fourth annual Student Lectures Series on November 1st and 6th, four on each night. These students are participants in Choate’s Science Research Program (SRP), a demanding three-part course that takes place during the junior year, the fall term of senior year, and the summer in between.

The Lectures Series focuses on the most hands-on part of this program: the summer research lab. For a minimum of 10 weeks, each SRP student joins a professional laboratory near their hometown. Along with their individual lectures, they compose a 20-page dissertation on their summer findings. Working 50-hour weeks on average, these students expose themselves to the demanding world of real-life scientific investigation.

Experimenting over the Summer

Over the course of the summer, the eight students, all working in varying areas, tasks, and positions, were each getting a deeper feel for the life of a researcher.

“They peed on me a lot, and bit me,” says Christopher Douglas ’08 of the rats he worked with in the Aronstein Lab at Yale University, while researching the pre-frontal cortex of the brain. By the end of Douglas’s time there, the lab had successfully discovered a new treatment that could, after further conclusive results are found, be used to protect schizophrenics from the negative impacts of stress.

Unpleasant animal byproducts aside, the SRP participants agree that the world of scientific research is a wonderful one. Lauren Provini ’08 says, “The beauty of it is that one discovery opens the door for so many more possibilities. You just can’t let setbacks get you down.”

Setbacks, though, are abundant. In a professional lab, weeks, months, and years can pass without progress. In a given day, a small mistake can postpone an entire procedure or seriously mar its results. The euphoria of success usually follows a tremendously long period of technical difficulties and other frustrations.

Preparing the Scientists

Mr. Deron Chang, the Program Coordinator of SRP, says he tries to prepare his student scientists for this experience during the course of their junior year. Abby Lee ’08 explained how they would unwittingly make errors during SRP labs last year, only to see their experiment fail at the end of the period. Only then would Chang explain the problem that his students had failed to foresee. “There was a lot of floundering with Mr. Chang”, Lee says, “but it was really just more life experience.”

Aiming for Siemens-Westinghouse?

Although not focused on the awards of the Siemens-Westinghouse science search, the program does feel pressure to impress on an interscholastic level. As the school markets this program, the way to speak to parents of prospective students is to “show some results,” one SRP student says. The student continued, “Although SRP isn’t about standing in front of the school catching a ‘Choate…of course’ t-shirt in recognition of our work, we certainly feel confident that we could win recognition if we sought it, as SRP alums have in the past.”

The accomplishment of not just keeping up in such a rigorous environment this summer, but excelling, was only the beginning for these students. Their individual labs made significant strides in their research; many have already published their discoveries. Many of the SRP students still receive emails from their summer lab, updating them on the progress of their experiments. Over the course of the summer, new medications were planned, theories altered, landmarks created—all with the help of these eight high school seniors.