US Science Students Present Summer Work

Six Benjamin upper school science students presented overviews of their summer work in programs and labs across the country to their peers during a special assembly. 

Head of Upper School Fletcher Carr said “words could not come close to doing their impressive efforts justice.”

Among those undertaking impressive projects was senior Jake Zur who not only interned with Max Planck Institute studying computer programming and neuroenergetics, but built his own app with friend and Benjamin graduate Alex Michelon ‘21.

Zur, who was diagnosed with diabetes, set out to build a diabetes management app. 

“We did all this research, we learned a couple languages. It took four months to develop and has thirty-thousand lines of code,” said Zur, whose app SweetSpot is now officially in the app store. 

Zur encouraged his peers to pursue their passions, even if there isn’t a formal avenue of instruction.

“If you don’t have an official way to do something you’re passionate about, you can always find a way to do it yourself. Even if it’s just your own research and youtube videos. You can really do whatever you want, no one has to organize it for you,” said Zur. 

Upper school students also heard from Skyler Malmberg who undertook a summer immersion course in bioscience at Wake Forest University where she studied disease tracing, epidemiology, pathology and history. Malmberg said she really enjoyed the program and hoped her peers would consider doing something similar in the future. 

Matias Saiz shared his experience at University of Pennsylvania’s Engineering Summer Academy where he studied computer science. 

“I find computers really fascinating. One of the coolest things about the program is that we learned how to make graphs from just a single line of code. In order to go along with the graphs, we also created Data Analysing Programs that when given data, could clean the data to only contain relevant information,” said Saiz.

Keira Hodum relayed her findings from her time at Georgia State University’s summer program with the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience where she studied genetics, brain, movement and mood disorders.

Tati Georges attended NSLC American University, where she furthered her love of medicine and honed in on which fields of medicine she is specifically interested in. 

Jake Horgen also shared his experience with Braidwell Biotech Hedgefund  where he studied Quantum Physics.


Back
A premier PK3 - Grade 12 independent, coeducational day school with campuses in North Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens. Since 1960, The Benjamin School has provided a challenging college preparatory education to a diverse student body in a structured, nurturing community environment.
 
After hours emergency contact:
Leslie Downs/Chief Operating Officer
Ph:  561.657.0075 or 561.747.0585