Seventy-one high-achieving and scholastically accomplished high school students from around the world participated this summer in hands-on interdisciplinary research at UC Santa Barbara as part of the 19th annual Summer Research Mentorship Program.

The average class GPA was 4.27. The students were high school sophomores or juniors from across the United States, as well as Canada and India.

Local high schools represented included San Marcos, Dos Pueblos, Laguna Blanca, Lompoc, Ventura, Dunn, Thacher and Santa Barbara.

Each student worked under the guidance of a UCSB research mentor. Lina Kim, Ph.D., is the director of the Summer Research Mentorship Program, and Cindy Bumgarner, Ed.D., is the director of UCSB Summer Sessions.

After six weeks of working individually with a UCSB professor mentor, each student gave a 10-minute research presentation over three days at the UCSB Engineering Science Building conference room. Research topics included: Impacts of Density and Aggregation on Infected Populations, Spectral Analysis in Computer-Generated Music, Testing the Feasibility of Thrust Generation by Laser Ablation for a Directed Energy Planetary Defense System, Phototaxis in Fungal Zoospores, Apoptosis in Drosophila Stem Cells, Cardiovascular Diseases: Prevention, Impact and Treatment, and others.

Click here for more information about the program.

— Noozhawk contributing writer Rochelle Rose can be reached at rrose@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.