Hannah Cha ‘25
A photo of this year’s STEM Fellows: JC Chen ’24, Tyler Scaringella ’24, Daniel Guo ’24, Coco Xia ’24, Sua Yoo ’24, Yolanda Zhou ’24, Carey Huang ’25, Sarah Mattson ’24, Jia Anand ’24, Avery Leonard ’24, Tiffany Ahn ’24
St. Mark’s had a standout year in STEM, both within and beyond the community. On April 5th, the St. Mark’s STEM Fellows showcased their outstanding independent study projects at the Massachusetts High School Science and Engineering Fair (MSEF) held at Gillette Stadium. St. Mark’s students competed among over 350 students with approximately 280 projects and achieved remarkable success.
Jia Anand ’24 won the Sanofi grand prize, earning first place for the highest-scoring project overall: Ginsenosides CK and RK’s Effect on High-Intensity Social Behaviors of Aggression in a Tauopathy Model of Alzheimer’s Disease in Drosophila Melanogaster. Avery Leonard ’24 also received the Alnylam Bioscience Excellence Award with her third highest-scoring project overall, featuring The Influence of Ginger Root Extract on Female Reproductivity in Caenorhabditis Elegans. All fellows represented the school with their exceptional creative and innovative STEM projects.
The Taft STEM Fellowship is a signature program of St. Mark’s that provides students with opportunities for research and real-world exposure to STEM applications. Beyond the school’s advanced-level curriculums, the program encourages students to think outside the realms of information from textbooks and develop intellectual curiosity in their choice of multidisciplinary science studies. The St. Mark’s STEM fellows are selected through an application process. They are expected to develop their research topics, contact mentors, and design their own experiments to compete at the regional and state fairs later in the year.
While the process of conducting independent research is highly tedious and challenging, STEM Fellows and faculty members state that the program is invaluable in developing hands-on, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills necessary for the future. It takes countless hours of work and effort, but the skills and experiences gained through the STEM Fellowship are truly priceless.
If you are a student with intellectual curiosity interested in STEM, why not seek answers to your questions through the STEM Fellowship? If you have the passion, the struggles will be worthwhile.