Chapin’s Aufhauser Internship Award is named in honor of Vivian Aufhauser, a member of the Class of 1958. The award is open to students in Classes 10 and 11 and provides recipients with the opportunity to participate in outstanding summer or year-long internships. According to Ms. Aufhauser's Chapin classmate and friend, Deborah Harding '58, "Vivian credited Chapin with preparing her to enter any number of fields and was grateful not just for the fine education she received, but also for the values and confidence Chapin instilled in its students."
Four Upper School Chapin students who were honored with an Aufhauser Science Internship Award last summer had the opportunity to share their experiences at a recent News Assembly.
Sophie Jabban, Class 11, described her work at NYU Langone Medical Center’s Division of Medical Ethics and discussed the field of bioethics in general. As an intern, Sophie researched genetics, genetic testing and anorexia and spoke enthusiastically about researching stem cells, in particular. “I see a huge possibility [in this field] for saving lives,” she said.
Jasmyne Pierre, Class 12, worked on a clinical research trial for the Director of the Stroke Center at Mount Sinai. Jasmyne described to the Upper School students the particulars of stroke research; in stroke treatment, she said, the goal is to save as much brain tissue as possible. During her internship, she enjoyed seeing an interweaving of stroke treatment and quality assurance of the treatment.
Alice Zheng, Class 12, worked for the second summer in a row in the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center lab of Dr. Morgan Huse. Alice provided the audience with background on how T cells function and described her research and testing. While she noted it was difficult to remove centrosomes from cells for testing, Alice concluded her talk by saying that her work proved the hypothesis that centrosomes are important for cell migration.
Elizabeth Yeoh-Wang, Class 12, was awarded a highly sought-after place in the Laboratory of Neural Systems at Rockefeller University’s Summer Science Research Program. There, she focused on using her math, coding and neuroscience knowledge to program new software that generated images to use when testing research subjects—in this case, macaques.
We look forward to continuing to hear about the scientific achievements of this latest round of Aufhauser interns!