Project SEED is the American Chemical Society program for getting science-interested high school students from low-income families into real chemistry lab jobs for the summer. These are paid summer internships doing real science. Here in the Albany NY area ENYACS has been running Project SEED since 2018. It’s been just long enough now for those students to have attended college and start their careers.
Three students shared the impact Project SEED had on fostering their careers in STEM:
Mason L. from Gloversville High School worked with K. V. Lakshmi at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for two summers on solar cell projects. He then attend SUNY Oneonta majoring in chemistry while doing internships, and then worked in the pharmaceutical industry for one year. He is right now starting a brand new job at the New York State Department of Health as a full-time Assistant Research Scientist.
“My Project SEED experience was one of the most important things I could have done to benefit my career.”
Bethany M. from Tamarac Middle School High School Bethany participated for two summers, first with Thomas Hughes at Siena University in 2018 and then with Jia Sheng at U Albany Chemistry Department in 2019. For college, she flew out to University of Alaska Fairbanks to major in ocean sciences. During that time she worked at some different internships in Alaska and North Carolina. Bethany now works as a marine biologist in New Hampshire.
“Project SEED made me feel ready and that I had ample knowledge not only for my classes but for the several labs I had worked in on and off campus. I could not imagine my life without the experience Project SEED gave me. I’m not sure that I’d be in the same situation if I didn’t get the experience from the program.”
Rebecca G. from Queensbury Union Free School District worked with Madushi Raththagala at Skidmore College on biochemistry projects. She then attended Barnard College majoring in chemistry. There she did protein engineering research for several years, eventually deciding to enter the Chemical Engineering PhD program at Rutgers University, preceded by a one-year fellowship at National Laboratory of the Rockies in Colorado working with plastic-degrading enzymes. Rebecca will be mentoring her own SEED student in her PhD lab this summer!
“Project SEED gave me exposure to research, but also the intersectionality between biochemistry/protein engineering and sustainability, and that has continued to be a theme throughout my academic and professional career. Most importantly, the Project SEED opportunity gave me the fundamentals to conduct research in my field, and because of that I have been able to develop independent research projects in my graduate and prior research.”
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