What I did with my summer vacation? Science!

A novel fire retardant that mitigates wildfires. Biosensors that can detect biomacromolecules at concentrations of 1 microgram per milliliter. Gelatin hydrogels for use in 3D bioprinting of human dermal fibrobalsts. Novel methods for enhancing hydrogen fuel cells and perovskite solar cells. New substrates that turn dental pulp stem cells into valuable bone and nerve cells.

Sounds like quite a productive research facility, doesn’t it? Even more remarkable is that these projects and many others, each just as innovative, are being performed by high school students – all participants in the Garcia Summer Scholars Program, under the direction of Dr. Miriam Rafailovich, chief scientist of the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center, and her staff of faculty mentors, graduate students and research undergraduates.

Every summer, more than 50 students from all over the country (and overseas) descend on the Stony Brook University Engineering Building. Over the course of the summer, they are elevated from barely being able to conduct an acid-base titration to becoming fluent experts in their fields, able to discuss advanced projects with professionals: nanocomposites, fuel cells, polymer blends, graphene oxide enhancement, hydrogel drug-delivery systems and more.

Following three days of laboratory-safety training, participants enjoy two weeks of instruction on laboratory techniques and equipment, interspersed with faculty lectures on cutting-edge SBU research. This gives students a thorough introduction to the possibilities, and they subsequently select a particular area of investigation. Then the work really begins.

Over the past 10 years at Garcia, I’ve been fortunate to have mentored more than 30 students from my very diverse Long Island high school, where more than 65 percent of the student body lives below the poverty level. Garcia gives my students research opportunities that puts them on an equal footing with students from more affluent communities, and their acceptance rates and scholarships to competitive colleges might, in part, be attributed to their research experiences.

In general, of course, research results don’t come easy – many students encounter failure before they taste success.

My students Jerry Reyes, Nicholas Williams and Roshan Reddy spent most of the Summer of 2017 dealing with one failed enzyme enhancement experiment after another, changing variables, researching published papers, circumventing roadblocks and coming up empty.

Returning to the lab daily, the team doggedly pursued their investigations. Finally, near the formal end of the Garcia program, they started to get noteworthy results – and not only became Siemens Competition semifinalists, but also published two research papers in MRS Advances with their names as co-authors.

It’s not all work and no play. These are still teenagers whose peers are spending their summers on the beach, so Dr. Rafailovich sets aside time for fun, including such summer pleasures as canoe trips, fishing boat expeditions, softball games, barbecues and pizza parties. Friendships are forged that last years after the students have left Garcia.

The mentoring doesn’t end with the formal end of the summer program, either. Dr. Rafailovich guides these students throughout the entire year and they are encouraged to return to the lab to continue their experiments at any time.

This past November, more than 40 Garcia students were invited to present their results at the Materials Research Society Fall meeting at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, with some asked to give PowerPoint presentations of their work at symposium sessions and others invited to display their projects at the poster-presentation sessions.

Many of these students subsequently published their research papers in professional peer-reviewed journals. Some even received patents for their discoveries. Most Garcia students, bolstered by their positive research experience, go on to pursue STEM undergraduate and graduate majors and careers.

Consider Jerry, Nicholas and Roshan: You might still find them lingering around the Engineering building. All three are currently pursuing engineering undergraduate degrees at Stony Brook University.

Rebecca Isseroff is a chemistry teacher at Lawrence High School. Miriam Rafailovich is the chief scientist of the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center.