PennerGroup outreach

The Penner Group High School Outreach Program.

what is it?
The Penner Group High School Outreach Program is a program of outreach to Orange County high school students in connection with our National Science Foundation contracts. It started with Jeff Chen, then a junior at University High School in Irvine, in 2001 with NSF award CHE-0111557.

The Class of Summer 2012: Visitors and members of the Penner Group High School Outreach Program, summer 2012. Shown from left to right are: Serkan Sevinc (Fatih University, Turkey), Deven Patel (Villa Park High School), Erick Andres (PG Outreach Fellow: Santa High School), Albert Tung (UniHigh Irvine), Kruthi Renduchintala (UniHigh Irvine), Brantly Fulton (Georgia Tech, NSF REU program participant), Emmanuel Vo (UC Davis undergraduate), Lindsay Kindra (NSF Materials Summer Program, graduate student)

During summer 2011 we had five students working together with us: Yash Desai (UniHigh, Irvine), Melissa Huang (Foothill High, Santa Ana), Cliff Kao (UniHigh, Irvine), Johncarlo Menza (Santa Ana High), Ashley Park (UniHigh, Irvine), and in 2012, we had four more (not including other visitors - see picture above) This brings to thirty one 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 Aliso Viejo (2), Costa Mesa, Fullerton (2), Mission Viejo, Newport Beach, Santa Ana (4), Valencia (2), and Villa Park (1). The map below shows the city of origin (as a blue dot) for each of our participants.

Map of Orange County indicating (as blue dots) the geographical distribution of participants in the Penner Group High School Outreach Program.

Students engaged in our outreach program often prepare posters for presentation 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 degree of success attained by each student in the laboratory, these students have all been enthusiastic and engaged in their research, which occurs under the direct supervision of a senior graduate student in the laboratory.

Two Penner Group High School Outreach Fellowship All Stars in Action:
LEFT: Ervin Meneses (Santa Ana High Schoool) examines an array of gold nanowires, summer 2010.
Ervin is a sophomore at Union College, Schenectady, New York this fall, 2012. Ervin was the first recipient of the Penner Group High School Outreach Fellowship sponsored and funded by National Science Foundation.
RIGHT: Johncarlo Mensa (Santa Ana High School) is aligning a lithographic mask on a sample to prepare it for the growth of nanowires, summer 2011. Johncarlo is presently (fall 2012) a freshman at Allegeny College in Pennsylvania. He was the second recipient of the Penner Group High School Outreach Fellowship sponsored and funded by the NSF.

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 Allegeny College (1), UC Berkeley (5), Caltech (2), Darmouth (1), Harvard (2), MIT (4), Stanford (1), Union College (1), USC (1), and UCSD (1).

are you interested in participating?
Great! Our summer 2013 Penner Group Highschool Outreach program will offer a 4 week course in Electrochemistry. You will attend a laboratory series Monday through Friday for 4 hours a day, from 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm, for the four weeks. Laboratory experiments in electrochemistry will illustrate key concepts, leading to an understand of the research in the Penner lab. Over the 4 weeks you will explore the following concepts:

types of conductivity and types of materials,
how batteries work,
electrochemical cells,
measuring current and potentials,
electrodeposition.

You'll also learn the various types of instrumentation that is used in electrochemistry to gather data such as: a potentiostat, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction. As well as learning laboratory skills the students will attend bi-weekly group meetings where they will learn more details about the projects that are being researched in the Penner lab. Collaboration is very important in science and these meetings will teach you how to interact with fellow lab members and how to approach difficulties in research by interacting with other scientists. In the last week and a half of the program you will concoct a mini electrochemistry experiment of your own, building your ability to think independently and allowing you the opportunity to explore a particular area of electrochemistry. This will involve conceiving of an electrochemical experiment, learning the background and setup of the experiment, collecting data, and compiling this information into a poster that will be presented on the last day of the program.

Still interested? Fantastic! Now, here are the requirements for admission into our program for 2013:

Must be an entering junior or senior in High School. (Undergraduate students must be entering juniors, must have completed 2 years of college and have 2 more years to finish.)
a 3.5 GPA.
Must have completed a high school chemistry or physics course. (Undergraduates must have completed all General Chemistry Laboratory classes with a 3.5 GPA in the series.)
Must be interested in pursuing a Science or Engineering degree. (Undergraduates must be a Chemistry, Physics, or Engineering major)
Must write a 1 page essay on why electrochemistry is interesting to them, why they are interested in doing research, and what they want to get out of this program.
Applications will be accepted between May 1st and May 31st, students will be notified if they are accepted by June 15th.
Accepted students must complete all safety requirements before the first day of the program. (More information will be given with an acceptance notice).
Accepted students must turn in all visitor paper work before the first day of the program. (More information will be given with an acceptance notice).

The Penner Group Highschool Outreach coordinator is Ms. Crystin Eggers - please email her your application materials and/or any questions you may have about our program. Please only send applications in the month of May, any other applications maybe lost or misplaced and you might not be considered for our program.

Table. Students Participating in the Penner Group High School Outreach Program: 2001-Present (reverse chronological order).

Student	Period of Association	Graduation Year	High School	Project Title	Present Status
Kruthi Renduchintala	6/12 to 9/12	2014	University High School¹ Irvine	Light emitting nanowires.	Currently a senior at University High.
Albert Tung	6/12 to present	2014	University High School¹ Irvine	Growing the grains in metal nanowires.	Currently a senior at University High.
Erick Andres*	6/12 to 9/12	2013	Santa Ana High School¹³ Santa Ana	Thermoeletric nanowires.	Currently a senior at Santa Ana High.
Deven Patel	6/12 to present	2014	Villa Park High School¹⁶ Villa Park	Biosensing with nanowires.	Currently a junior at Villa Park High
Johncarlo Menza*	6/11 to 9/11	2012	Santa Ana High School¹³ Santa Ana	Thermoeletric nanowires.	Freshman, Allegheny College , fall 2012.
Yash Desai	6/11 to 9/11	2013	University High School¹ Irvine	ZnO nanowires for the photolysis of water.	Currently a senior at UniHigh, Irvine
Cliff Kao	6/11 to 9/11	2013	University High School¹ Irvine	NO_x sensing with gold nanowires	2nd place, International Chemistry Olympiad, 2012! Congrats Cliff!
Ashley Park	6/11 to 9/11	2013	University High School¹ Irvine	Biosensing using PEDOT/phage films.	Currently a senior at UniHigh, Irvine
Melissa Huang	6/11 to 9/11	2013	Foothill High School¹⁵ Santa Ana	Biosensing using PEDOT/phage films.	Currently a senior at Foothill High
Felicia Hsu	4/10 to 9/10	2011	Valencia High School¹⁴ Valencia	Silver nanowires for high sensitivity sensing.	Sophomore at MIT, fall 2012.
Ervin Meneses*	6/10 to 9/10	2011	Santa Ana High School¹³ Santa Ana	Laser thermal annealing of metal nanowires	Freshman at Union College, Schenectady, New York, fall 2011.
Sam Kim	9/09 to 12/09	2011	Aliso Niguel High School¹² Aliso Viejo	Thermoelectric nanowires	Sophomore at Harvard, fall 2012.
Catherine Dong	6/09 to 9/09	2012	Northwood High School¹¹ Irvine	Electrodeposition of nanowires.	TBA
Vivek Abraham	2/09 to 8/09	2012	University High School¹ Irvine	Electrodeposition of nanowires.	TBA
Jennifer Kadowlski	5/09 to 8/09	2010	Troy High School¹⁰ Fullerton	Electrodeposition of nanowires.	Junior at UCLA, fall 2012
Ayan Kusari	8/08 to 3/09	2011	University High School¹ Irvine	An Electrolytic Approach to Ocean Water Restoration	Sophomore at UCSD, fall 2012.
Pratiksha Thanker	8/08 to 12/08	2010	UniHigh¹ Irvine	Phage-Based Biosensing	Junior at MIT, fall 2012.
Chasen Stark	6/06 to 8/08	2009	University High School¹ Irvine	LPNE Bi Nanowire growth and characterization	Senior at USC, fall 2012.
Jonathan Noguchi	summer 2008	2008	Troy High School¹⁰ Fullerton	Metal nanowires	Senior at Stanford University, fall 2012.
Aashish Varma	5/07 to 8/08	2008	Estancia High School⁹ Costa Mesa	Hydrogen sensing with palladium nanowires	Sophomore at Cal Berkeley, fall 2012.
Adam Khan	4/07 to 8/08	2008	University High School¹ Irvine	Semiconductor nanowires	Sophomore at Caltech, fall 2012.
Micca Hecht	4/07 to 8/08	2008	Tarbat V'Torah⁸ Irvine	Design of RCL nanowire circuits	Junior at MIT, fall 2012.
Dat Hoang	6/06 to 8/07	2007	Trabuco High⁷ Mission Viejo	Virus-Based Biosensing	Graduated Berkeley 2011, grad. student at Columbia in Chemistry, fall 2012.
Johan Hoang	8/05 to 6/06	2006	University High School¹ Irvine	Semiconductor Nanowires	Graduated Harvard
Swetha Kambhampati	10/04 to 6/06	2006	University High School¹ Irvine	Thermoelectric Nanowires	Swetha wins Merage American Dream Fellowship!. Graduated MIT in 2010
Sherwin Doroudi	6/04 to 9/04	2005	Sage Hill High School⁵ Irvine	Metal Nanowire Etching	Graduated Caltech.
Trevor Granger	6/04 to 9/04	2004	Sage Hill High School⁵ Irvine	Silver Nanowire Growth and Electrical Simulations	Graduated Dartmouth.
Keidi He	8/03 to 1/06	2004	University High School¹ Irvine	Detecting Dissolvecd Hydrogen Using Pd Nanowire Arrays	graduated UC Berkeley, 2011.
Albert Linden	6/03 to 3/04	2004	University High School¹ Irvine	Chemical Sensing with Metal Nanowires	graduated UC Berkeley, 2010.
Rui Wu	6/02 to 8/03	2003	University High School¹ Irvine	Electrodepositon of Iron Nanowires	graduated MIT.
Jeff Chen	9/01 to 5/02	2002	University High School¹ Irvine	EC Synthesis of Luminescent Cadmium Sulfide Nanoparticles	B.S. in EE, UC Berkeley 2004, CEO of Mertex Technologies.

*Penner Group High School Outreach Fellow.
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/.
¹³Santa Ana High School, Santa Ana, CA, http://www.sausd.us/sahs/site/default.asp.
¹⁴Valencia High School, Valencia, CA, http://www.hart.k12.ca.us/valencia/.
¹⁵Foothill High School, Santa Ana, CA, http://foothillhigh.org/contact_us.jsp/.
¹⁶Villa Park High School, Villa Park, CA, http://www.orangeusd.k12.ca.us/vphs/.

research :: people :: pubs :: teaching :: outreach