What is it?

At the inception of NSF award CHE-0111557 in August 2001, my research group initiated a program of outreach to local high school students. Eight students were engaged in the program during the five-year period from 2001 to 2006 (see table below). This program was expanded during CHE-0641169 and DMR-0654055 (2006 to 2009) to include a total of eleven new students. This brings to nineteen the total number of high school students who have pursued independent research projects under the supervision of myself and senior graduate students. This web site has produced visibility for our program beyond the City of Irvine and since 2006 we have attracted students from Fullerton (2), Costa Mesa (1), and Mission Viejo (1).


New participants Pratiksha Thaker from UniHigh, Irvine (left) and Catherine Dong, from Northwood High, Irvine (right)
get their gloved hands dirty in the Penner Lab, summer 2009.

Students engaged in this program prepare posters and these posters are presented at the Orange County Science Fair (OCSF). These presentations have been well received and as indicated in the Table, several have been selected at OCSF for presentation at the California State Science Fair (CSSF). Irrespective of the success or failure of their respective projects, these students have been uniformly enthusiastic and engaged in their research, which has taken place under the guidance of a senior graduate student in the laboratory.

They're Great!

Two students (Rei Wu and Swetha Kambhampati) competed in the Siemans-Westinghouse Competition (http://www.siemens-foundation.org/competition/.), the most prestigious science competition for high school students in the U.S., and both were recognized as semifinalists. Of the fourteen "graduates" of the Penner Group High School Outreach Program, thirteen have proceed to top-ranked colleges and universities including UC Berkeley (5), Caltech (2), Darmouth (1), Harvard (1), MIT (3) and Stanford (1). The fourteenth, Chasen Stark, is applying to colleges now. Among these, two have graduated from college: Jeff Chen received his B.S. in electrical engineering in just two years from UC Berkeley and Rai Wu graduated. Jeff is presently CEO and founder of Mertex Technologies (http://www.mertextech.com/). We are enormously proud of these former group members.


Swetha Kambhampati and Albert Linden are two stars of the Penner Group High School Outreach Program
from University High School, Irvine. Swetha graduated from UniHigh in 2006 will be a sophomore at at MIT this fall.
Albert just completed his junior year at UC Berkeley.


Table. Students Participating in Penner Group HighSchool Outreach Program 2001-Present.
Student Period of Association Graduation Year High School Project Title Awards Present Status
Jeff Chen 9/01 to 5/02 2002 Uni High
Irvine		 EC Synthesis of Luminescent Cadmium Sulfide Nanoparticles 4th place CSSF2, semifinalist, Siemans Westinghouse3 semifinalist B.S. in EE, UC Berkeley 2004, B.S. in EE, UC Berkeley 2004,
CEO of Mertex Technologies.
Rui Wu 6/02 to 8/03 2003 Uni High1
Irvine		 Electrodepositon of Iron Nanowires 1st place CSSF2 now at MIT.
Albert Linden 6/03 to 3/04 2004 Uni High1
Irvine		 Chemical Sensing with Metal Nanowires 3nd place OCSF4 now at UC Berkeley.
Keidi He 8/03 to 1/06 2004 Uni High1
Irvine		 Detecting Dissolvecd Hydrogen Using Pd Nanowire Arrays 2nd place OCSF4. now at UC Berkeley.
Trevor Granger 6/04 to 9/04 2004 Sage Hill High School5
Irvine		 Silver Nanowire Growth and Electrical Simulations now at Dartmouth.
Sherwin Doroudi 6/04 to 9/04 2005 Sage Hill High School5
Irvine		 Metal Nanowire Etching now at Caltech.
Swetha Kambhampati 10/04 to 6/06 2006 UniHigh1
Irvine		 Thermoelectric Nanowires 3rd place CSSF2; semifinalist, Siemans Westinghouse3, winner of SINAM Award6 for Outstanding Nanoscience now at MIT
Johan Hoang 8/05 to 6/06 2006 UniHigh1
Irvine		 Semiconductor Nanowires now at Harvard
Dat Hoang 6/06 to 8/07 2007 Trabuco High7
Mission Viejo		 Virus-Based Biosensing now at UC Berkeley
Chasen Stark 6/06 to 8/08 2009 UniHigh1
Irvine		 LPNE Bi Nanowire growth and characterization TBA
Micca Hecht 4/07 to 8/08 2008 Tarbat V'Torah8
Irvine		 Design of RCL nanowire circuits A perfect SAT score?
Amazing!!		 Freshman at MIT, F'2008!
Adam Khan 4/07 to 8/08 2008 UniHigh1
Irvine		 Semiconductor nanowires Freshman at Caltech, F'2008!
Aashish Varma 5/07 to 8/08 2008 Estancia High School9
Costa Mesa		 Hydrogen sensing with palladium nanowires Freshman at Cal Berkeley, F'2008!
Jonathan Noguchi summer 2008 2008 Troy High School10
Fullerton		 Metal nanowires Freshman at Stanford University, F'2008!
Pratiksha Thanker 8/08 - present 2011 UniHigh1
Irvine		 Phage-Based Biosensing TBA
Ayan Kusari 8/08 - 3/09 2011 UniHigh1
Irvine		 Electrolytic consumption of CO2 TBA
Jennifer Kadowlski 5/09 - present 2011 Troy High School10
Fullerton		 TBA TBA
Vivek Abraham 2/09 - present 2011 UniHigh1
Irvine		 TBA TBA
Catherine Dong 6/09 - present 2012 Northwood High School11
Irvine		 TBA TBA
Sam Kim 9/09 - present 2012 Aliso Niguel High School12
Aliso Viejo		 Thermoelectric nanowires TBA
1UniHigh = University High School, Irvine, http://www.iusd.k12.ca.us/uhs/.
2CSSF = California State Science Fair, http://www.usc.edu/CSSF/.
3Siemans-Westinghouse Competition, http://www.siemens-foundation.org/competition/.
4OCSF = Organge County Science & Engineering Fair, http://www.ocsef.org/.
5SageHill = Sage Hill High School, Newport Coast, http://www.sagehillschool.org.
6SINAM = Center for Scalable and Integrated Manufacturing at UCLA, http://www.sinam.ucla.edu/.
7Trabuco Hills High School, Mission Viejo, CA, http://thhs.svusd.org/.
8Tarbat V'Torah High School, Irvine, CA, http://www.tarbut.com/.
9Estancia High School, Costa Mesa, CA, http://www.nmusd.us/schools/estancia/.
10Troy High School, Fullerton, CA, http://www.troyhigh.com/.
11Northwood High School, Irvine, CA, http://www.northwood.org/.
12Aliso Niguel High School, Alsio Viejo, CA, http://www.alisoniguel.net/.
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Copyright 2009 R.M. Penner