{"304561":{"#nid":"304561","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Project ENGAGES - High School Education Program Not Your Typical Teenager Experience","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThe first in a series of stories about Project ENGAGES, which begins its second year at the Petit Institute.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EKatrina Burch will be a high school senior when the fall semester begins at Coretta Scott King Young Women\u0027s Leadership Academy, but she\u2019s already got a year of college lab experience behind her with more to come. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThis isn\u2019t the typical teenager experience,\u201d says Burch, who is beginning her second year in Project ENGAGES, a high school education program created through the NSF Science and Technology Center on the Emergent Behaviors of Integrated Cellular Systems (EBICS, a research center that is supported and resides in the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThis is nothing like working at a fast food restaurant,\u201d Burch says. \u201cI\u2019m working on all of this expensive equipment, with researchers who depend on me to get my work done. And summertime is when they expect us students to really crank it out.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELast summer, she was part of the inaugural class of Project ENGAGES (which stands for Engaging New Generations at Georgia Tech through Engineering and Science). Developed as a partnership between the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Coretta Scott King Young Women\u2019s Leadership Academy and B.E.S.T. Academy, the program aims to raise awareness of students in economically-challenged, minority-serving public schools to the world of engineering, science and technology, while also improving the high schools\u2019 current science education program. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis summer, Burch begins her second year in the program, a fully integrated member of Manu Platt\u2019s lab in the Petit Institute. Meanwhile, a new group of high school students is nearing the end of their four-week ENGAGES boot camp, and moving into different labs, where they will receive real-world, hands-on experience under the guidance of Georgia Institute of Technology scientists and engineers. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EPlatt, assistant professor and Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scholar at the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Bob Nerem, founding director of the Petit Institute (and Professor Emeritus in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering) co-founded Project ENGAGES as a natural offshoot of EBICS, a center comprised of a national network of top-flight institutions, including (among others) the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Morehouse College and the University of Georgia, in addition to Georgia Tech. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWith an overarching mission to creating a new scientific discipline for building living, multi-cellular machines, EBICS (whose leaders are meeting in their fourth annual retreat this week, in Illinois) also places a heavy emphasis on diversity in all aspects as it strives to develop the next generation of researchers and leaders, people like Katrina Burch, who has set an ambitious, broad-minded goal, \u201cto learn how to see the bigger picture of the world and do something great.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERight now, she\u2019d be content with being viewed as just another scientist in the lab, \u201cand not just a high schooler.\u201d Project ENGAGES demands a 40-hour work week from its high school students during the summer, and about 15 hours a week during the school year. So far, Burch has thrown herself into the work. \u201cKatrina constantly impresses me with her enthusiasm and zeal for research,\u201d says Kristi M. Porter, her mentor in the Platt lab. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBurch, who was born in North Carolina, grew up in Atlanta, raised by her mom, the only daughter with an older brother who is also a high school senior, and a younger brother who was born with a genetic disorder called di George syndrome. \u201cIt can take on many forms, but in my little brother\u2019s case its meant organ failure, autism, developmental delays,\u201d says Burch. \u201cIt\u2019s different for every kid.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESame could be said for formal education, she says \u2013 her older brother hasn\u2019t decided if he wants to go to college yet, so Katrina could be the first person in her family to make that step. Then again, she says, \u201cschool has always been my thing,\u201d and she\u2019s narrowed her college choices to Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt and Florida A\u0026amp;M. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Project ENGAGES experience \u2013 actually working, for a paycheck, in a university biotech lab \u2013 makes her feel like she understands what it takes to be a college student and it\u2019s helped confirm something she says her teachers always told her, something she\u2019s bought into. \u201cPay attention, do what you have to do, and people will pay you to come and learn. That\u2019s what they said,\u201d Burch recalls. \u201cI feel like that\u2019s the easiest route for me. I feel like that\u2019s the smart route.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"The first in a series of stories about Project ENGAGES, which begins its second year at the Petit Institute."}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe first in a series of stories about Project ENGAGES, which begins its second year at the Petit Institute.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The first in a series of stories about Project ENGAGES, which begins its second year at the Petit Institute."}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-06-23 13:47:23","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:37","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-06-23T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-06-23T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"304581":{"id":"304581","type":"image","title":"Katrina Burch, a 2nd year Project ENGAGES student","body":null,"created":"1449244637","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:57:17","changed":"1475895009","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:09","alt":"Katrina Burch, a 2nd year Project ENGAGES student","file":{"fid":"199663","name":"burchkatrina-engages.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/burchkatrina-engages_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/burchkatrina-engages_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":719626,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/burchkatrina-engages_0.jpg?itok=n3WbtIMS"}},"304881":{"id":"304881","type":"image","title":"2014 Class of Project ENGAGES high school students","body":null,"created":"1449244637","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:57:17","changed":"1475895012","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:12","alt":"2014 Class of Project ENGAGES high school students","file":{"fid":"199671","name":"2014_project_engages_group_picture.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/2014_project_engages_group_picture_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/2014_project_engages_group_picture_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2748287,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/2014_project_engages_group_picture_0.jpg?itok=PMUI0jLv"}}},"media_ids":["304581","304881"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/projectengage.gatech.edu\/","title":"Project ENGAGES website"}],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"126581","name":"go-ProjectEngages"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering \u0026amp; Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}