Holding ESTEEM in High Regard

news story image

Image: Kofinas (far left) and Matthews (third from right) pictured during the 2019 program with high school students from the local area. Photo provided by J. Matthews.

For the second year in a row, Peter Kofinas, Professor and Chair of the University of Maryland (UMD) Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) and Jesse Matthews, a ChBE undergraduate student, have served as mentors for the ESTEEM/SER-Quest Summer Research Program, hosted by the UMD Center for Minorities in Science and Engineering (CMSE).

ESTEEM – which stands for Engineering Science and Technology to Energize and Expand Young Minds – is designed to give high school students who are underrepresented minorities experience working on a college-level research problem. Over a period of four weeks, groups of two to four students, recruited from local high schools, work together to develop a research topic and then present their work at a symposium during the final week.

"I’ve been a mentor for this program for the past two summers - in person last summer, and virtually this year," said Matthews. "As a mentor, I design a research problem for the participants and then guide them on how to complete it. Normally, I do some lectures early in the program on the theory behind the research, and then direct related experiments and the written work. In 2019, I continued working with the students through the fall semester as they prepared to present their work at the LSAMP symposium."

This year's (virtual) program ran July 6 - 31, 2020, and included two weeks of SAT preparation. To learn more about eligibility, or how you can become a mentor, follow this link or contact Marissa Massey (cmse@umd.edu).

Published July 29, 2020