SERC Students Present at National Conferences

Two seniors in Potomac’s Science and Engineering Research Center (SERC) program recently had opportunities to present their work at national conferences.

In December, Lulu Tierney was invited to present her research at the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Conference in Chicago, IL. Lulu’s research focuses on planetary habitability – specifically, how planetary habitability varies as a function of inhabitance. One way to investigate this question is through a quantitative analysis of planetary atmospheric chemical reaction networks. Lulu used the Caltech/JPL KINETICS photochemistry model to simulate a suite of CO2–N2-dominated (Mars-like) atmospheres with different levels of habitability and inhabitance by varying the H2O and CH4 content of the atmosphere, to obtain a clearer picture of what truly contributes to a planet's habitability. Lulu was one of only two high school students presenting at the conference.

In February, Lauren Foster presented her research at the Orthopedic Research Society (ORS) Conference in Dallas, TX. Her project focused on creating a decellularized tissue scaffold for volumetric muscle loss to support muscle regeneration. ORS is an organization of professional surgeons, researchers, and other orthopedics professionals. Lauren was the only high schooler to present a poster among nearly 1,000 presenters from universities and organizations around the world. 

Lulu's and Lauren's poster presentations can be found here.