The Potomac School

Arlington Magazine named Madeline Dubelier '16 one of the 10 winners of its 2016 Extraordinary Teen Awards. The prosthetic hand with touch sensors that Dubelier created as part of the Science and Engineering Research Center (SERC) program at Potomac led to her distinction as a semifinalist in the 2016 Intel Science Talent Search. She is pictured with Gianmarco Terrones '15, who was also a semifinalist in the 2016 Intel Science Talent Search.

Whether the day was spent organizing and restocking items, playing Monopoly with seniors at an assisted living community, or gardening and making other improvements on the school's campus, everyone helped make a positive difference.

Matt, who is a student in Potomac's Science and Engineering Research Center (SERC) program, has been working on his independent research project for more than two years. Potomac biology teacher Dr. Isabelle Cohen notes, "Matt's findings are an extension of 2014 Potomac graduate Caden Petersmeyer's research on identifying plant fungi that consume plastic as their sole nutrient." After isolating more than 50 types of fungi, Caden discovered two that are capable of surviving solely on plastic.

Using the fungi that Caden identified, Matt took the research a step further: He sought to identify the digestive byproducts produced as the fungi consume plastic. His research shows that the fungi break down polyurethane particles while producing neither carbon dioxide nor methane – meaning that this process has the potential to bioremediate plastic waste without producing byproducts that are harmful to the environment. Part of Matt's analysis was conducted at Georgetown University's Institute for Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology, under the guidance of Dr. Xinran Zhang.