School News

The Upper School was privileged to welcome former Potomac history teacher Steve Goldberg back to campus to share the story of his friend, and now-deceased Holocaust survivor, Abe Piasek. Splicing together photographs, historical context, and clips of Abe speaking and being interviewed, Mr. Goldberg shared a captivating tale of resilience amid devastating inhumanity. He followed up his assembly presentation with a lunchtime conversation where a smaller group of students and teachers were able to ask questions about Abe's life and the work Mr. Goldberg is doing to continue telling his story.

Six seniors from Potomac’s Science and Engineering Research Center (SERC) program have been selected as regional finalists for the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS). Lauren Foster will prepare an oral presentation to be considered for Nationals, while the other students will compete in the poster sessions to be ranked at the National level. The presentations will take place at The Catholic University of America on February 25. 

The students began their projects during their junior year and worked on them throughout the summer of 2022. Lauren’s work focuses on decellularizing muscles to generate a natural platform to regenerate muscle. Arya Bansal developed a quantitative AI model to extract data from medical images through high-dimensional radiomic features in PET and CT scans. Grace Lee researched potential biomarkers for medically diagnosed depression by correlating the signaling pathways in MDD and calcium deposition in teeth enamel. Mika Dewar developed an app that uses rPPG technology to detect changes in pulse rate and blood flow when the user interacts with deep-fake data. Alex Christ developed drug-loaded micromotors that improve drug delivery in gastric cancers. And Andrew Lay investigated the testing of hand/arm prosthetics to identify the most reliable approach by analyzing quantitative and qualitative evaluations, including the Box and Block Test. Congratulations to our SERC seniors; we are very proud of their accomplishments!

Seniors Arya Kumar and Ali O’Brien, like many of their peers, were eager for an opportunity to investigate a global problem and design a project that reflected the complexities of political systems, economic exchange, and national identity.