This website chronicles my journey through the “StanEx” project, a novel collaboration between Dr. Seung Kim’s Developmental Biology lab at Stanford University, and Phillips Exeter Academy. “StanEx” was born shortly after Dr. Kim’s visit to Exeter in February 2012, and has grown into a pioneering research initiative that breaks through the walls of traditional high school coursework. The main goal of the StanEx project is to genetically manipulate Drosophila melanogaster, or fruit flies, in order to generate a widely applicable tool set that is available to the broad scientific community. The initiative also aims to introduce high school students to the trials and joys of real-world scientific research and its relevance to human medicine. The findings will be published in a scientific paper in June 2014.
My experiences with the StanEx project include both, my work as a summer research intern at Dr. Kim’s lab at Stanford, and my stint as a teaching assistant for the BIO 470 course at Exeter. The information I have included on this website encompasses the techniques and knowledge I have garnered from both settings. I feel privileged to have played a pivotal role in creating the new genetics course at Exeter, and to have had the opportunity to participate in cutting-edge research at Stanford University. Outside of the lab and the classroom, this stint taught me valuable lessons and afforded interactions with a stellar community of researchers, post-docs, academics and students, one that will serve me for a long time. I hope that this website is helpful to others interested in Drosophila genetics, as well as the unique scientific collaboration unfolding between Stanford and Exeter.
"Bio 470 was designed to have experiments with compelling reality, not only mattering in the classroom but in the world. This natural move to experimental science demonstrates how science is taught in the real world – through intimate apprenticeships."
- Seung Kim, Stanford University