Parkway Students Earn Awards for Intensive Science Research

Eight Parkway School District students recently received the LMI Aerospace/D3 Technologies Award for Excellence in Research. The award comes with the completion of a six-week program in which students work alongside top research mentors from several science institutions, such as the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis University, Washington University, Solae and UMSL.

The students conducted research, shadowed their mentors and attended lectures by nationally recognized scientists.

At the end of the program, students submitted research papers on various topics. According to a release, the winning papers best exemplified the following: difficulty and complexity of research; appropriateness of the research methodology; findings; quality of writing; and overall quality of the research process.

The following are Parkway’s eight students who were Excellence in Research winners, their research topics and organization or the university they worked with:

• Jonathan Herbert Brand, Central High - “Evaluation of Battery Parameters with a Genetic Algorithm” - Washington University
• Michael Thomas Esker, South High - “Photoelectron Imaging of Negative Atomic Ions in Determining Photodetachment Selection Rules” - Washington University
• Victor Ge, Central High - “DART - A Tool for Designing Artificial MicroRNAs” - Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
• Jenna Louise Lin, South High - “Particle Size Measurement of Aerosols Generated by an Electrospray” - Washington University
• Louis S. Wang, Central High - “Synthesis of Hydrated Magnesium Carbonates for NMR Characterization” - Washington University
• Mindy Xu, South High - “Analysis and Comparison of Artificial Micro RNA Processing in Monocot and Dicot Foldbacks” - Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
• Satya Pavan K. Yalla, South High - “A Drosophila Model for Lou Gehrig's Disease” - Saint Louis University
• Rebecca Moyi Zhang, Central High -  “Purification and Characterization of Fab Fragments of the Monoclonal Antibody against the Murine Norovirus” - Donald Danforth Plant Science Center