New Research Partnership to Help Young Stuyvesant Scientists Flourish

Stuyvesant hosted a summer research poster presentation organized by The Young Scientist Foundation (YSF), a research mentorship program, on Monday, August 28. Seniors Marta Pawluczuk and Rochelle Vayntrub were invited to showcase their work alongside 12 other NYC students. The presentation was part of a new partnership between the school and the program to develop research opportunities at Stuyvesant.

Efforts to expand Stuyvesant’s research program began during the summer of 2016 when Principal Eric Contreras met with YSF President and co-founder Dr. Goutham Narla. YSF members were invited to the school to tour the building and to observe students in action during their science classes. “[YSF] already had relationships with some other schools in the area. I was actually surprised that we hadn’t done this before,” Contreras said. “I’ve been thinking about strategic ways of building our research and science programs. Our collaboration with the Young Scientist Foundation is just one of many pieces to developing these programs.”

As part of its program, YSF matched students to laboratories and mentors around the city. Pawluczuk worked with a medical student and a head-and-neck surgeon in the Division of Endocrine Surgery at New York University (NYU) Langone Medical Center. Her research looked at the significance and occurrence of perineural invasion, the spread of cancer around nerves.

Vayntrub worked at the Platelet Research Laboratory at the New York Blood Center under the mentorship of Dr. Bruce Sachais. There, she was involved in the development of a novel drug to treat heparin-induced thrombocytopenia and thrombosis, a disorder which creates or enlarges blood clots.

Pawluczuk and Vayntrub both struggled to find research opportunities before this program. “I had always wanted to participate in research, but as a high school student, it was extremely difficult for me to find and acquire any position in a laboratory despite my persistence. Very few scientists were willing to open their labs to young people,” Vayntrub said in an e-mail interview. “Thanks to [YSF], the door to the Platelet Research Laboratory is always open, and I will always have somewhere to come back to.”

Both students believe the partnership gave them more access to research than they expected to have and valuable experience for the future. “I was blown away by the fact that [...] as a high school student, I was doing the same level of research as a third year medical resident,” Pawluczuk said in an e-mail interview. “By allowing me to experience all sides of research, I feel better suited for future steps I want to take to help me reach my career goals.”

The positive response from Stuyvesant’s participants in the program has motivated Contreras to develop plans to enhance the school’s science program. “In other initiatives, I’m working on an engineering program at Stuyvesant,” Contreras said. “We’ll make sure to provide the foundational classes that allow students to pursue more advanced classes, prepare them to be knowledgeable in those areas, and inspire them to make connections and collaborations beyond those areas.”