My Introduction to STEM: A college student’s reflections on two MAGICal mentorships
My elementary school always had the coolest science fairs. Every year I’d volunteer and in 5th grade, I was assigned to the superconductor booth. This booth, I was told, involved a material that had incredible properties, but only when it was cooled down to -321 degrees Fahrenheit with liquid nitrogen, which is when it became a “superconductor.”
The actual demonstration showcased one of these properties by pouring liquid nitrogen into a petri dish with superconductor material in it. Then I’d come in with a pair of tweezers and drop a magnet on top of the superconductor. But instead of falling, it would levitate! It felt like magic. As the little magnet spun in circles, the booth managers talked about superconductors, how they “expelled magnetic fields” and could conduct electricity perfectly because it had “zero electrical resistance”. I didn’t quite understand what any of that meant but soon, I’d learned the spiel myself, and was fantasizing with the attendees about magnetic-levitation trains and perfectly efficient energy transmission.
It was the most fascinating phenomenon I’d seen in my life and so the next year, in 6th grade, when I heard through my school, The Girls’ Middle School, about MAGIC, a program where I could talk with an actual scientist, I thought this could be my chance to understand how those superconductors worked.
In a week, I got a letter in the mail from my new mentor Sarah Rice. She felt like a larger-than-life kind of figure — a physicist who’d worked with superconductors and was now an engineer, building and modernizing ships for the Navy. I was so inspired before I’d even talked with her, and once I did, I was completely awe-struck. Not only was she an incredible scientist but she was immediately supportive and kind.
I remember being so giddy to talk with her each week, ready with a list of questions that I couldn’t quite believe were going to be answered by a real life scientist. With her, I glimpsed what was behind the “magic” of superconductors. I learned about Cooper pairs which could only form at super cold temperatures, and was the bond between a pair of electrons which allowed them to travel with “zero electrical resistance” through a wire. And I learned about the Miessner effect, which explained how a superconductor could “expel magnetic fields” which cause magnets to float over them.
Throughout the year, Sarah was supportive in all things science, and we talked about a range of subjects from the periodic table to astronomy. She even introduced me to her twin sister Emily who is an astronomer in New York, and I got to talk space with her from dark matter to neutron stars. As I said in my final presentation, “it was an AWESOME introduction to astronomy.”
My most memorable meeting was our last one. Through the mentorship, our sessions had always been through Google Meets because she lived many hours away in Southern California, but in our last week together, she flew down and I got to meet her in person! We went to the Exploratorium in San Francisco together and in that science playground we were immersed in hands-on science experiments. At the end of her trip, she gave me a little superconducting chip, which still has a place of honor on my bookshelf, next to a book she gave a year after my official mentorship, “The Magic of Mathematics”.
Second MAGIC Experience
My second MAGIC mentorship sparked as I began to take more interest in biology. In my intro to biology course in 8th grade, we had a biotechnology unit where we learned the power of tools like cloning and CRISPR-Cas9. I was shocked by their use cases from editing the genomes of embryos to changing the way a fruit tasted. My first thought was why don’t we have an army of cloned cheetahs yet? This was a completely reasonable question for me as cheetahs are my favorite animal, and since I was six I’d been involved with cheetah conservation groups which have worked very very hard for decades to try and save the cheetah from extinction. Cloning technology had been around since the 1980s, so why hadn’t we just cloned them? From my teacher and on my own, I began to learn about the complexities of biotechnologies and genetics, but I still had many questions.
So in the summer before 9th grade, I reached out to MAGIC, hoping for another chance to work with an inspiring scientist in the field. To my elation, they paired me with my second amazing mentor, Sonali Pandhe!
Sonali’s letter of introduction was immediately inspiring. From a small village in India, her passion for learning and helping others took her to a PhD in Molecular Biology. At the time she was my mentor in 2019 she worked at a biotechnology company Genentech, on the project of creating the new drug Xofluza, a prescription medicine to treat the flu. I was inspired by the ambition and thoughtfulness exemplified by her career path. Each next opportunity she pursued was very intentional, informed by her reflections on past experiences, and she didn’t settle for a position where she didn’t find meaning. During our mentorship, she encouraged me to be thoughtful and ambitious too.
During our eight weeks together, she guided me through a research project where I reviewed the potential of biotechnologies for endangered species conservation. I learned about a host of interesting new technologies like gene drives, a tool that uses CRISPR that can spread a chosen trait to an entire species within some generations.
Our project put me face to face with the complexities of integrating new technologies into our world. It wasn’t just about bugs or kinks in the new tech, but also very real ethical concerns, like that technologies such as a gene drive allow humans to play “God”, changing natural evolution. There are also political issues like, how will regulations be created to limit bio technologies that can affect our whole world’s environment so it can be used safely. Learning about these complexities grounded me a bit from my daydreams of a cloned cheetah army, stuffed with genetic diversity. But it was also very interesting to engage in this new and very practical facet of scientific discoveries.
After MAGIC
My experiences with MAGIC acted as a foundational step which has since allowed me to engage with more complex opportunities. The year after my mentorship with Sonali, and with her recommendation, I interned in the Stanford Earth Young Investigators program with the Payne Paleobiology lab to publish an abstract with an inspiring group of peers on how environmental factors 500 million years ago affected brachiopod bodysize. This in turn allowed me to take more ownership over my next project with UC Riverside where I worked under the mentorship of the Seymour Lab exploring genes and regulatory regions involved in citrus susceptibility to the currently incurable Citrus Greening disease. Now, I’m excited to be working for the Miller Lab here at Rice University studying if and how climate variables differentially affect grass species with and without their fungal symbionts!
I’m really looking forward to exploring new research fields. Particularly, after interning with a software AI company Moveworks last summer, I hope to get experience applying the power of ML, and am especially interested in exploring its intersection with agriculture and precision farming.
I am beyond grateful to MAGIC for introducing me, and providing momentum to be excited about STEM. The program gave me the confidence to explore opportunities outside school and get engaged in niche scientific subjects. I feel so fortunate to have a personal relationship with such impressive women in STEM. They have been steady role models to me, and I aspire to follow in their footsteps and pursue projects in science that are excitingly complex and meaningful to our understanding of the natural world.
