Occidental College – Institute for Educational Advancement

The Many Faces of Gifted: Albert

��Ƶ Staff — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 06:04:06 +0000

By Carole Rosner

Every gifted person has a unique story. The following story is part of a series of posts depicting the many faces of gifted by highlighting gifted children and adults we have found through ��Ƶ programs. ��Ƶ’s – mentioned in this story – links gifted high school students from across the country with mentors who advance each participant’s skills through the application of knowledge and exposure to real world experiences.

Albert Keung
2000 Apprentice, Aeronautical Engineering, Occidental College
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Boston University/Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Can you imagine what it would be like to fly in an unpowered glider over Southern California? Albert Keung didn’t have to imagine it; he actually did it in the summer of 2000. Albert was an Apprentice in the Aeronautical Engineering program at Occidental College and mentored by the late Dr. Paul MacCready, founder of AeroVironment, Inc. and known as the “father of human-powered flight.”

“A small plane towed each of us up with a pilot and released us at 10,000 feet, and we soared for what felt like hours without any power. The views were amazing, and because of the small cockpit and the unpowered flight, it was the closest to natural flying I think I will ever feel,” Albert said.

Coming to California that summer of his senior year to participate in ��Ƶ’s program was just what Albert was looking for. “I had never been to California or the West Coast, and that was exciting to me. I had also never gone to summer camps growing up, so heading far away from home in Boston was also going to be a new experience. Of course I have always been naturally drawn to science and engineering, and I think some of the more visible and accessible fields for me at that age were in aerospace and mechanical engineering. Cool planes? Count me in! Plus, obviously the chance to learn from a pioneer in the field like Dr. MacCready was an incredible opportunity!”

“Our projects were to build model hand-launched gliders with mounted miniature cameras to record our flights. We learned about air currents, thermals, and maneuvers to take advantage of them to keep our gliders in flight. It was amazing thinking about how much energy for flight and maneuvers could be derived simply from the design and operation of the unpowered glider. We were also tasked with researching a specific area related to aeronautical engineering or sustainable flight and presenting our findings to our fellow Apprentices.”

I asked Albert what one of his biggest challenges was as an Apprentice. “It was deciding on a research topic from such a broad field. We could choose to read up on any topic related to aeronautical engineering, which was freeing but intimidating. It was one of my first introductions to unstructured research. It was liberating but simultaneously very difficult. I realized knowing what I didn’t know was probably the most important and difficult element of research, but crucial in deciding what was interesting to study.”

After returning to high school that fall, Albert looked at the world a bit differently. “The main difference I felt going back to high school was my sense of scope. In multiple ways, those few weeks opened my eyes to a much larger world, both geographically (I loved California) as well as scientifically. I had a new sense of curiosity for all the sights in the scientific world I hadn’t seen yet. While I was in awe of what could be accomplished in flight design, the experience wasn’t all aeronautical engineering. For example, Dr. MacCready brought us to the house of his friend who studied optical illusions. I remember walking down a hallway where flat pictures looked like they were popping out of the walls into your path. There were so many neat and diverse experiences that summer that it made me realize how rich in intellectual wonders the world is.”

Albert graduated with a PhD from the Chemical Engineering Department at UC Berkeley last year. “My thesis work was studying how stem cells can be engineered to become specific types of neural cells. Understanding how neural stem cells sense and respond to their environment is important for both regenerative medicine and our understanding of natural brain development. Specifically I was interested in how stem cells sense and respond to mechanical forces in their environment. In many ways, while I ended up in chemical and bio-engineering, I am still drawn to mechanical aspects of design and engineering like I was during my Apprenticeship. Currently, I’m a postdoctoral fellow at Boston University/HHMI. I’m investigating new synthetic biology approaches to controlling cellular processes and behaviors. My ultimate and continuing goals are to develop well controlled synthetic biology systems to study fundamental biological questions about cellular and tissue regulation and organization, and also to engineer synthetic devices for use in cells that could produce pharmaceuticals or biofuels or sense toxins or cancer cells in humans. Long-term, I am very interested in the architecture of biology, meaning how elements of our genome, cells, and tissues interact to yield such complex properties and behaviors and how these elements can be wired in useful ways for biomedical and industrial needs.”

As far as career goals, Albert wants to be excited and intrigued in the work he does. “A large part of my excitement will be whether there is some beneficial impact, short or long-term, of my work on human health. It is likely for me personally that I will remain in research and engineering. I think it is a privilege to study the sciences and in many ways studying how the world works humbles you just by its sheer complexity, diversity, and unintuitive surprises. But at the same time, studying how the world works makes one feel more human and more appreciative of everything and everyone around me. It’s somewhat like the feeling I think astronomers must get when they look at distant structures in the Universe, feeling simultaneously very small but very in awe. On the engineering side, I like to build things, so what better way to study science than by building something and testing it to see how it behaves. And in the process, hopefully we can build or learn something useful to society. After my experiences in college and graduate school, I’ve found I also like to teach and feel pretty strongly about improving education, so hopefully a career as a professor would be an ideal blend of both.”

Even though he’s a post doc fellow, Albert does have some free time. “Outdoors I like to ski, run, and play tennis. Indoors I enjoy watching sci-fi, spy shows, and anything with conspiracies! I’m a bit of a news magazine junkie too, reading a lot of articles mostly about education but also just keeping up with what’s going on in the world.”

Do you know a high school student that would be a good fit for ��Ƶ’s summer Apprenticeship Program? Sign up for our emails and be the first to know when 2014 dates and applications are available!

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The Many Faces of Gifted: Alexandra

��Ƶ Staff — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 08:03:12 +0000

By Carole Rosner

Alexandra Balcazar
��Ƶ Apprentice at The Huntington Museum in 2001
Outside Professional Assistant, Victoria and Albert Museum

“��Ƶ does not take intelligence for granted; rather, it fosters and develops it. The Apprenticeship Program made me more confident in my abilities and opened up many new possibilities for me. Having a program like ��Ƶ was invaluable, and I feel very lucky to have participated,” Alexandra Balcazar, a 2001 Apprentice, explained.

Alexandra was in 11th grade when she found out about ��Ƶ’s summer Apprenticeship Program from her Pasadena high school biology teacher.

“Since I enjoyed and did well at biology and had been considering going to college for it, my teacher thought the program in botany at The Huntington Museum would be a good match for me. I also liked the idea because I had always enjoyed The Huntington as a visitor, so it was exciting for me to be able to go behind the scenes to intern there. Also, I was pretty shy, so I thought it would be a good way to meet other like-minded people,” Alexandra went on to say.

She worked with Mentor Jim Folsom, The Huntington’s chief Botanist. “The main project was to study the chemical and biological mechanisms of the Venus Fly Trap. Our group conducted several experiments with the plant to measure how quickly the fly trap would respond to stimuli and whether it would respond differently to various types of ‘bait’. We also did some studies in perceptions of real versus fake flowers, asking visitors about what they saw and what made them think a flower was real or not.”

A few experiences from Alexandra’s Apprenticeship stick out in her mind. “I’m never going to forget the moonlit garden tour of The Huntington and the overall feeling of being part of a team that helps the museum and gardens function. Having the opportunity to meet so many experts in their fields was inspiring and encouraging, because they were so down to earth and easy to talk to. My Mentor clearly loved his job, and he passed that excitement along to the Apprentices.”

“From a social perspective, it was one of the best experiences I could have had in high school. We stayed in Occidental College dorms, and we had a couple of incredibly fun residential supervisors who kept us busy and entertained when we were not at The Huntington. I think it was the first time I was around kids from many different educational backgrounds, and it was simultaneously comforting and thrilling to meet other people who were friendly, ambitious and very, very intelligent.”

Alexandra went back to high school with a new perspective after apprenticing at The Huntington. “The program gave me hope to find similarly intellectually stimulating environments and people in college and beyond. It also dissolved some feelings of intimidation I had about working in a professional, research-driven place with lots of brilliant people (brilliant people are nice and normal too!). I went to an under-privileged high school in Pasadena, and while there were some excellent, dedicated teachers and a handful of kids who worked hard academically, the standard for the overall student body was set low, with few expectations for students to go on to higher education. As an Apprentice, I was given proof that working hard academically, and being a conscientious, aware person can offer rewards, and it made me more determined than ever to do well in school and apply myself to new projects.”

Alexandra currently works in London and lives in the seaside town of Brighton, England. She describes her post-high school journey as a long and winding road. “After high school, I took a turn from biology and realized that I loved art history. I ended up being an art history major and medieval studies minor at Smith College, in Massachusetts, and did my junior year abroad at St Andrews, in Scotland. While at Smith, I started interning at the college’s art museum as a tour guide, and during the summer, I interned at Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth, MA. I loved art and museum work, but in the last semester of my senior year, I took an introduction to costume design and fashion history course and became hooked on the study and design of costume.”

“After graduating in 2006, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a costume and textiles curator or a costume designer, so I tried out both, while doing substitute teaching on the side. I interned at the L.A. County Museum of Art (LACMA) in their costume and textiles department and worked on the accessioning and cataloguing of 18th and 19th century garments, which eventually formed the basis of LACMA’s ‘Fashioning Fashion’ exhibition from 2010. I loved interning there, but in reality, one generally needs at least an MA to do curatorial work, and I just wasn’t ready for that yet. I put museum and costuming work on the back burner for a while and decided to get my California Teaching Credential instead. However, just after getting my credential, an opportunity arose to become a costume/wardrobe assistant for short films and TV, and I jumped at the chance. At that point, I was a qualified teacher, but my earlier costume aspirations were revived. I also worked as an apprentice at a shop in L.A. called reVamp, which makes period-accurate fashion reproductions from the first half of the 20th century. I learned pattern-making, cutting and sewing, which was all helpful in learning more about the technical aspect of fashion.”

“In 2011, I decided finally to go for my Masters. I went to the University of Sussex in Brighton for my MA in Art History and Museum Curating. Sussex has a link with the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), an incredible design museum in London. It was through that link that I began my involvement with the V&A.”

Although Alexandra started out as an intern, she is currently an Outside Professional Assistant (or OPA) at the V&A. “As an intern, I started the archiving process for a recent V&A exhibition of digital art, researched fashion designers who use digital technology in their clothes, and assisted with public events put on by the Contemporary department. As an OPA, I am continuing as an assistant for museum events, which includes setup, installation and de-installation of art, facilitating public activities and liaising with artists who are involved with the events.”

“I just finished my dissertation, which was about digital art in museums, so that is a new area of interest for me. I still love costume and fashion history, and so I am actively pursuing curating jobs in that area, too, but to be honest, I have no idea what I will be doing in ten or twenty years’ time. Maybe go back teaching? Curating? I am completely okay with not knowing where things will lead, but I just want to be able to enjoy what I am doing, so that enthusiasm is reflected in my work. Last May, I got married here in England, to a lovely Brit who is getting his PhD at Sussex, so while he finishes the degree, we’ll be here for a least a few more years.”

Alexandra still keeps in touch with some people from ��Ƶ and hopes to catch up with fellow Apprentice alums soon. “I did actually run into Jim Folsom, my mentor from The Huntington, while visiting the gardens a couple years ago. It was wonderful to see him again, and it was really nice to hear that he remembered me and the work I did while I was there. He is so knowledgeable and such a nice guy, so it was great to catch up with him and his work.”

Applications for the 2013 are now available. For more information and applications, please visit the of our website or contact us.