Project Seed is a summer program where local students participate in science research programs at colleges like Rutgers, New Jersey City University, Princeton, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and Columbia. Scientists who receive research grants allow students to come into their labs to learn their techniques under the supervision of graduate students and professors.
The American Chemistry Society has run the program for over 44 years. The program lasts eight to 10 weeks. Students can continue doing research after returning to school in September.
Nadia Makar, the Union City High School science department chair and a coordinator for Project Seed New York, recently suggested to the American Chemical Society that they reduce the stipends for students to work in the labs. This way kids can still take part.
“I learned the basics of laboratory research.” – Diya Abdeljabbar
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Testimonials
Paola Severino, a graduate from Union City High School’s class of 2011, will attend Yale University in the fall of 2011. She took part in the program for two summers.
“Being able to do research with Project Seed has opened so many doors for me,” she said last week. “I’ve gained innumerable skills and vast amounts of scientific knowledge that have helped me flourish as a scientist. It’s also helped me realize that this exactly what I want to do with my life. I want to be part of the scientific community that gives back to the world one experiment at a time.”
Karen Matinez, a graduate of Union Hill High School, participated in the program a few summers ago. Now she has a BS in Chemical Engineering from NJIT and will soon be working at Intel Corporation.
“I did research for Project Seed at Rutgers University in New Brunswick,” she said. “Under the mentorship of Dr. Gregory Herzog. I still remember my first project, ‘Determination of manganese in meteorites using spectrophotometry.’ ”
Diya Abdeljabbar, a Union Hill graduate, received his BS in chemical engineering and is currently finishing his Ph.D. study at Princeton University.
“I worked under Dr. Joseph Fu, PhD at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of NJ in Newark in the Biochemistry Department,” he said. “I had the chance to work closely junior and senior researchers on the development of cataracts in animal models.”
Diya’s favorite experience was helping bring Project Seed to Princeton University, where he was able to mentor high school students from his former town of Union City.
One kid at a time
Makar has been a teacher in Union City since 1979.
“To me it is so important to help those students,” she said. “One time I had a boy, this is 20 years ago, I helped get into Stevens [Institute of Technology in Hoboken] on a scholarship and one day he said to me, ‘I don’t understand you. Here you are helping me get a scholarship and I am going to become an engineer and the minute I graduate I am going to make double your salary. Why are you helping me?’ And I said to him, ‘Who knows where you can go and who knows what in the future you going to do? You might come up with something that will help humanity.’ And he responded, ‘I never thought of it this way.’ ”
Since 1989, 80 percent of Union City students who participated in the program went into a career in the sciences.
In order to be eligible for the program the student usually has to have at least one year of chemistry with a cumulative grade average of B.
Santo Sanabria may be reached at SSanabria@hudsonreporter.com.