EXPLORE Sites & Mentors

Summer 2019 Sites and Mentors

EXPLORE Summer 2019 sites will be added as they are confirmed with the mentors. Please check the EXPLORE page regularly for an updated list or sign up for our email list to stay up to date on our future EXPLORE program offerings! Also, please note that scholarships and payment plans are available to students in need, and financial concerns should not discourage any student from applying.

ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)
Program Dates: Saturday, July 20, 2019 – Friday, August 2, 2019 (Session III, 2 weeks)
Career Field(s): Arts, Media, Technology, Engineering
Program Fees: $850.00

Students will have the opportunity to work with Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) faculty and graduate students in a two week immersive program which introduces design thinking and fabrication techniques. The workshops are coordinated by design faculty and Co-Principal of I/O, Betty Kassis and facilitated by two graduate-level architect students. Located at SCI-Arc, students will take advantage of some of the most advanced resources in the country, and experience the energy of this vital and creative institution. Through a unique series of innovative exercises, students will learn basic 3D modeling skills using Rhino and an introduction to graphical literacy using Photoshop and Illustrator. Emphasis is placed on the production of physical models constructed through a digital workflow, and the representation of these models for the students evolving portfolios. Students will also learn key design concepts, related vocabulary and communication skills through desk critiques, pinups and reviews.

BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA)
Career Field(s): Science, Technology
Program Dates: Saturday, June 15 – Friday, July 5, 2019 (Session I, 3 weeks)
Program Fees: $975.00

A student will have the opportunity to work with Assistant Professor, Dr. Alexandra (Sasha) Wright, and her team of graduate level student researchers at CSULA’s Department of Biological Sciences. Dr. Wright is a Plant Biologist and Theoretical Ecologist who is committed to addressing ecological problems through research and education and is currently working on several projects involving how plants interact in extreme environments. She has published more than a dozen research papers on plant biodiversity and ecological responses to climate change. As part of her research team, the student will help conduct fieldwork at CSULA’s campus greenhouse and at grassland sites around Los Angeles. By the end of the session, the student will be able to identify at least three grassland species in the field, explain how humidity affects plant performance, and operate basic plant physiology equipment.

Prerequisites: Experience and interest working outdoors in hot weather, doing sometimes strenuous fieldwork. Enjoy hiking and being outside. Applicants must be 17 years of age (or turning 17) at the start of the program to be placed at this site.

BIOLOGY & BIOENGINEERING
California Institute of Technology (CalTech)
Program Dates: Saturday, June 15, 2019 – Friday, July 26, 2019  (Session I + II,  6 weeks)
Career Field(s): Science, Technology, Engineering
Program Fees: $1,950.00

A student will have the opportunity to work with Dr. David Van Valen and his research team in the Department of Biology and Bioengineering at California Institute of Technology. Dr. Van Valen Dr. Van Valen’s Lab studies how living systems and their respective viruses encode and decode information about their internal state and their environment. To do so, they combine ideas from cell biology and physics with recent advances in imaging, machine learning, and genomics to make novel measurements. By the end of the session, the student will understand the need for training data to empower supervised machine learning methods and become familiar with cloud computing and deep learning-based computer vision methods.

Prerequisites: A strong background in biology and physics. Programming experience, preferably Python and Javascript. Applicants must be 15 years of age or older at the start of the program to be placed at this site.

BIOMATHEMATICS
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Program Dates: Saturday, June 15, 2019 – Friday, July 5, 2019  (Sessions I,  3 weeks) *Note: Session duration has recently changed due to the mentors’ schedules.
Career Field(s): Science, Technology, Health
Program Fees: $975.00

Students will have the opportunity to work with UCLA Professor, Dr. Van Savage, and Postdoctoral Researcher, Dr. Alex Brummer, in the Department of Biomathematics, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Institute for Quantitative and Computational Biology. The students will use mathematical and computational approaches to understand the causes and consequences of the extraordinary diversity in form and function that exist in biological systems. A key area of study has been on vascular systems that deliver vital materials and how their structure dynamics differ in plants versus animals, across tissue, and between healthy and diseased states such as tumor growth or stroke recovery. Understanding these differences involves intuiting and testing the fundamental biological, chemical, and physical constraints that guide the development of these vascular networks. This project involves independent research as well as data analysis to discover how organismal physiology influences biological structure and dynamics. By the end of the session, students will learn to use Angicart software to extract data from medical images, write code in R to analyze data, and learn to translate key concepts into mathematical equations.

Prerequisites: Strong written and oral communication skills, experience in Microsoft Office, strong biology and physics skills, and interest in web design and database language. Applicants must be 15 years of age or older at the start of the program to be placed at this site.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
TreePeople
Program Dates: Saturday, June 15, 2019 – Friday, July 26, 2019 (Sessions I + II, 6 weeks)
Career Field(s): Science, Education
Program Fees: $1,950.00

Students will have an opportunity to work with Enjoli Ferrari, Youth Leadership Manager, and her team at TreePeople. Born from the efforts of a teenager over 40 years ago, TreePeople is an environmental nonprofit organization whose mission is to inspire, engage and support people to take personal responsibility for the urban environment, making it safe, healthy, fun and sustainable and to share our process as a model for the world. They have involved more than 3 million people in planting and caring for more than 3 million trees in the Greater Los Angeles area. Students will be immersed in various outdoor projects including (a) learning and understanding the functionality and structure (biology, morphology, and anatomy) of the tree and California native plants, (b) working in the field to collect data and provide detailed documentation on the health of trees species in Cold Water Canyon, detailing tree deaths, canopy die back, pest infestations, wilting, and growth pattern differences (c)participating in hands-on tree and plant care to ensure the park thrives and (d) investigating how the soil moisture in non-irrigated and irrigated areas effect gophers and other wildlife.

Prerequisites: Enjoys the great outdoors; open to learning. Applicants must be 16 years of age or older at the start of the program to be placed at this site.

EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Program Dates: Saturday, June 15, 2019 – Friday, July 26, 2019 (Sessions I + II, 6 weeks)
Career Field(s): Science, Health, Medicine
Program Fees: $1,950.00

Students will have an opportunity to delve into the innovative research being conducted by Dr. Pamela Yeh and her research team at UCLA’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Dr. Yeh is an evolutionary biologist who focuses on the evolution of drug resistance in bacteria. She is specifically interested in understanding how we can use drug combinations to slow down the evolution of increased antibiotic resistance and to decrease the likelihood of future evolution of resistance. Students will be supervised and work collaboratively with Dr. Yeh’s postdoctoral and graduate researchers and participate in weekly Skype meetings with Dr. Yeh. The first two weeks will be primarily spent researching and reading papers, gathering data from literature, and dissecting papers to gain a deeper understanding of Dr. Yeh’s research and work. The final four weeks will be spent mostly in the lab. By the end of the session, students will gain hands-on experience working in a wet-lab, gathering and synthesizing data from published works, and experience collaboration with a research team to examine questions focused on evolutionary medicine topics.

Prerequisites: Applicants must be 15 years of age or older at the start of the program to be placed at this site.

FILM & MEDIA
Apsara Media for Intercultural Education
Program Dates: Monday, July 8, 2019 – Friday, July 26, 2019 (Sessions II, 3 weeks) *Note: Mandatory program orientation on June 15th
Career Field(s): Media/Entertainment, Arts, Education
Program Fees: $975.00

A student will have an opportunity to work directly with UCLA Adjunct Professor, Dr. Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy, at Apsara Media for Intercultural Education which contains field documentation materials created by her and Professor N.A. Jairazbhoy. Dr. Catlin-Jairazbhoy has a background in classical and non-classical music of South and Southeast Asians and Asian-Americans, field methodology, Ethnographic Film in Ethnomusicology, music and the sacred, and applied and public sector Ethnomusicology. Currently, she conducts a Literacy Program for Sidi African-Indians in Gujarat, India. She maintains Apsara Media for Intercultural Education, her small publication and research company and studio in Valley Glen, California, where she works with her audio-visual and research archives.

The student will delve into several projects including learning methods of metadata production concerning field recordings and information to prepare for archiving at UCLA and editing original audiovisual fieldwork materials shot in India for online access to trailers and full videos. The student will also participate in a field-trip to UCLA’s newly renovated Ethnomusicology Archive.

Prerequisites: Interest in film and music. Possess skills and familiarity with video editing programs. Organized, independent, and a self-starter. Possess a laptop.

LITERATURE & MEDIA
Red Hen Press
Program Dates: Saturday, June 15, 2019 – Friday, July 26, 2019 (Sessions I + II, 6 weeks)
Career Field(s): Arts, Media/Entertainment, Human Services
Program Fees: $1,950.00

Students will have the opportunity to work with Media Manager, Monica Fernandez, and Deputy Director, Tobi Harper, at Red Hen Press. Red Hen Press, one of the few literary presses in the Los Angeles area, was founded in 1994 by Kate Gale and Mark E. Cull with the intention of keeping creative literature alive. They are committed to publishing works of literary excellence, supporting diversity, and promoting literacy in our local schools.

In collaboration with the Media & Marketing team, students will create, update, and manage documents, help identify best social media practices for marketing and publicity, and gain knowledge of book marketing and production. By the end of the externship, the students will produce and oversee the marketing and media campaign for a literary work.

Prerequisites: Students must be a rising junior or senior, possess proficiency in writing, and have an interest in literature.

MEDIA & EDUCATION
Organization: SIMA Studios
Program Dates: Saturday, June 15, 2019 – Friday, July 26, 2019 (Sessions I + II, 6 weeks)
Career Field(s): Media/Entertainment, Education, Global Development
Program Fees: $1,950.00

Students will have an opportunity to collaborate with Virginia Pittaro, Director of Global Partnerships, and her team at SIMA Studios. SIMA is a non-profit impact media agency that seeks to advance global awareness, social justice, human rights and education by supporting content creators, activists, educators and change makers on the front-lines of social change, and amplifying the impact of their works to inspire activism, compassion and social transformation. SIMA started as the first and only international media competition honoring achievements in the creative, human rights and humanitarian fields. Today, SIMA is the most renowned global curator in the social impact space, serving independent film, academic and global social justice industries around the world. The students will assist the team with their educational film program, SIMA classroom, and delve into research projects to help increase SIMA’s social impact efforts and expand their resources and lesson plans. The students will also gain experience with outreach, networking, copy-writing and editing.

Prerequisites: Strong interest in global social justice, documentaries, advocacy, and education. Excellent research, writing, and communication skills. Tech savvy, with familiarity with Google Docs, web editing platforms, and Microsoft Office Suite.

PRODUCT DESIGN
ArtCenter College of Design
Program dates: Saturday, June 15 – Friday, July 5, 2019 (Session I, 3 weeks)
Career Field(s): Arts
Program Fees: $975.00

Product designers imagine and create everyday products including sporting goods, shoes, toys, daypacks, housewares, electronics, tools, furniture/lighting and other lifestyle products. Students will have an opportunity to work with Design Consultant and Professor, Kema Subsomboon, and ArtCenter Faculty to explore exciting educational and career opportunities related to the product design profession.

During the interactive 3-week workshop, students will be introduced to the industrial design fields which include: product, transportation, environmental, entertainment, and interactive design. Beginning students will learn fundamental design processes and techniques through hands-on projects. By the end of the session, students will undertake design problems resulting in projects suitable for a beginning portfolio while gaining exposure to ArtCenter and college life.

Prerequisites: Basic skills in sketching or alternative art form, an interest in pursuing art and design, experience or knowledge of Keynote or PowerPoint, and a laptop computer for research and project presentations.

PSYCHOLOGY
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Program Dates: Saturday, June 15, 2019 – Friday, July 26, 2019  (Sessions I + II,  6 weeks)
Career Field(s): Science, Health
Program Fees: $1,950.00

Students will have the opportunity to work with UCLA Professor, Dr. Aaron Blaisdell, and his team of graduate student researchers at the Blaisdell Lab in the Department of Psychology. Dr. Blaisdell’s laboratory investigates the behavioral processes of animal learning and cognition, namely describing how animals build and use representations of their world. The state of the art research facilities include a rat lab for studying associative and cognitive processes, a pigeon lab with touchscreen-equipped operant chambers and an open-field spatial search apparatus for the study of learning and cognition, and a hermit crab lab for studying learning and cognition in crustaceans. The student will acquire hands-on, direct experience of behavioral research with animals in a team setting, learn how to apply the scientific method, and review primary scientific literature related to his research.

Prerequisites: No allergies to rats or pigeons and a willingness to work with rats, pigeons, and hermit crabs.

Past Mentors and Sites

ASTRONOMY
California Institute of Technology

Students had the opportunity to work with Dr. Lynne Hillenbrand in the Department of Astronomy at Caltech. Since 2001, Dr. Hillenbrand has taught astronomy and astrophysics at the undergraduate and graduate level, and has mentored 24 undergraduate students. She has been working in the area of star/planet formation and stellar astrophysics for nearly 20 years with observational and data analysis experience covering wavelengths from x-ray to millimeter, though focusing mostly on optical/near-infrared science. Under her direct guidance, students will be working with astronomical catalogs and databases, downloading information, and making plots to investigate the properties of variable stars, circumstellar disks, and correlations of these properties with the age of the star. By the end of the program, students will gain a deeper understanding of scientific research, participate in data organization and analysis, and have an increased appreciation for astronomy.

COMPUTER SCIENCE
University of California, Los Angeles

Students will have an opportunity to work with UCLA adjunct professor and head of the Laboratory for Advanced Systems Research (LASR), Dr. Peter Reiher. THE LASR conducts important research in many areas related to networks, operating systems, and distributed system. Under Dr. Reiher’s guidance, students will not only gain a better understanding of computer and network security, but will also learn about advanced network attack and defense mechanisms.

ENGINEERING
University of Southern California

Students will have an opportunity to work with Dr. Luciano Nocera, a Computer Scientist, and Associate Director at USC’s Data Science Institute (DSI). DSI is an informatics research center that focuses on data-driven solutions for real-world applications. Researchers are motivated by the need to address fundamental Data Science problems related to applications with major societal impact, in four major domains including Transportation, Social Media, Security, and Health. We expect to offer students the opportunity to participate in research projects related to Health; examples include (a) using wearables and mobility sensors to understand how active people are and utilize this information to optimize performance in a clinical and military applications, e.g., to build predictive models of human performance and outcomes, (b) contribute to develop serious games for health applications, (c) analyze wearables data including a glucose monitor data to establish the relationship between continuous glucose measures, BMI, diet, activity and biometrics. Depending on the project, by the end of the program students will learn and understand the basics of computer science in data acquisition, storage, analysis and visualization, wearables data, serious games and web technologies. Students will also apply principles through hands-on research and participate in research meetings with graduate and undergraduate students.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
TreePeople

Students will have an opportunity to work with Enjoli Ferrari, Youth Leadership Manager, at TreePeople. Born from the efforts of a teenager over 40 years ago, TreePeople is an environmental nonprofit organization whose mission is to inspire, engage and support people to take personal responsibility for the urban environment, making it safe, healthy, fun and sustainable and to share our process as a model for the world. They have involved more than 3 million people in planting and caring for more than 3 million trees in the Greater Los Angeles area. Students will be immersed in various outdoor research projects including (a) learning and understanding the functionality and structure (biology, morphology, and anatomy) of the tree and California native plants, (b) working in the field to collect data and provide detailed documentation on the health of trees species in Cold Water Canyon, detailing tree deaths, canopy die back, pest infestations, wilting, and growth pattern differences (c)participating in hands-on tree and plant care to ensure the park thrives and (d) investigating how the soil moisture in non-irrigated and irrigated areas  effect gophers and other wildlife.

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY & FILM
Apsara Media for Intercultural Education

Students will have an opportunity to work with UCLA Adjunct Professor, Dr. Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy. Dr. Catlin-Jairazbhoy has a background in classical and non-classical music of South and Southeast Asians and Asian-Americans, field methodology, Ethnographic Film in Ethnomusicology, music and the sacred, and applied and public sector Ethnomusicology. Currently, she conducts a Literacy Program for Sidi African-Indians in Gujarat, India. She maintains Apsara Media for Intercultural Education, her small publication and research company and studio in Valley Glen, California, where she works with her audio-visual and research archives. The student will have an opportunity to work directly with Dr. Catlin-Jairazbhoy at Apsara Media which contains field documentation materials created by her and Professor N.A. Jairazbhoy. The student will delve into several projects including learning methods of metadata production concerning field recordings and information to prepare for archiving at UCLA, editing original audiovisual fieldwork materials shot in India for online access to trailers and full videos, creating access to video and print publications for Apsara Media’s website, and researching Library of Congress protocols for depositing published audiovisual and print publications. The student will also participate in a field-trip to UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive.

EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
University of California, Los Angeles

Students will work with Dr. Pamela Yeh and her research team in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA. Dr. Yeh is an evolutionary biologist who focuses on the evolution of drug resistance in bacteria. She is specifically interested in understanding how we can use drug combinations to slow down the evolution of increased antibiotic resistance and to decrease the likelihood of future evolution of resistance. By the end of the session, students will gain hands-on experience working in a wet-lab, gather and synthesize data from published works, and collaborate with a research team to examine questions focused on evolutionary medicine topics.

ARTS EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
Kadenze

Students will have an opportunity to work with Harmony Jiroudek, Director of Academic Customer Relations, and Scott Groller, Director of Production & Photography at Kadenze. Kadenze is an education technology company that has partnered with several art institutions to provide access to the highest quality online interactive courses and an engaged network of schools, instructors, and students. Kadenze fills a void in the massive open online course (MOOC) education world, as there are no arts-¬focused platforms that can deliver a specialized art experience or assessments tailored for artists and art students. Students will assist in the production of Kadenze courses by performing such tasks as course scheduling, course research and development, and course management. Students will also have a unique chance to help with a shoot at their Studio. By the end of the program, students will have the ability to collaborate and problem solve with large and small teams, gain experience scheduling, organizing, and interacting with multiple disciplines, and have a better understanding of project management.

NEUROSCIENCE
University of California, Los Angeles

A student has the  opportunity to work with accomplished medicinal chemist and Associate Professor, Dr. Varghese John, Senior Staff Scientist, Patricia Spilman, and Lab Manager, Jesus Campagna at the Drug Discovery & Translational Laboratory in the Department of Neurology at UCLA. The laboratory is focused on discovery and development of drug candidates for neurodegenerative diseases primarily for Alzheimer’s disease. Students will gain more knowledge about Brain disorders, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, learn about new drug discovery research being done in the lab to find cures, and get involved in some lab work.

NON-PROFIT LEADERSHIP
CoachArt

A student has the opportunity to work with Program Director, Argelis Ortiz, at CoachArt. CoachArt is a non-profit organization which creates a transformative arts and athletics community for families impacted by childhood chronic illness. Under the direct guidance of Mr. Ortiz, the student will assist in identifying research-based volunteer program models and develop a potential volunteer model and recruitment plan for the organization. Additionally, the student will work with two amazing Program Coordinators, Emily and Erick, to gain exposure to the inner workings of a large non-profit event and plan the logistics and recruitment for CoachArt’s Annual All-Star Sports showcase. Finally, the student will participate in community outreach and funding efforts to learn more about non-profit development and the importance of community involvement in building a successful non-profit.

NON-PROFIT MANAGEMENT
Institute for Educational Advancement

A student will have an opportunity to work with Abby Daniels, Director of Development and Communications, at the Institute for Educational Advancement. Ms. Daniels graduated with a BA from University of Pennsylvania and has nearly 20 years of experience in nonprofit fundraising, marketing, communications and public relations. Under her direct mentorship, the student will conduct targeted resource identification and research and participate in developing short and long-term fund development, marketing and communications strategies. By the end of the program, the student will develop a deeper understanding of what makes a nonprofit a nonprofit, learn the fundamentals of nonprofit fund development, and experience the “behind the scenes” efforts that support a comprehensive fundraising program.

OPHTHALMOLOGY
UCLA Jules Stein Eye Institute

A student has the opportunity to work with Dr. Gavin Bahadur, Assistant Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology, at UCLA’s Jules Stein Eye Institute. In practice for more than 20 years, Dr. Bahadur is currently an ophthalmologist in Santa Monica, California and is affiliated with multiple hospitals, including Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Providence Saint John’s health Center, and UCLA Medical Center. He received his B.S. in Biology with Honors from Brown University and later earned his medical degree from Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Under his guidance, the student will assist with tracking and analyzing refractive outcomes of patients who have undergone cataract surgery.

PEDIATRIC MEDICAL RESEARCH
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

Students will work in the laboratory of Dr. Henri Ford of Pediatric Surgery at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Students will study the pathogenesis of necrotizing enterocolitis, a devastating intestinal disease in premature infants. The students will work with experts in intestinal physiology, molecular biology, and functional genomics. The focus of the research activity is to look at molecular pathways that predispose the intestinal barrier to destruction.

PRODUCT DESIGN
ArtCenter College of Design

Product designers imagine and create everyday products including sporting goods, shoes, toys, daypacks, housewares, electronics, tools, furniture/lighting and other lifestyle products. Professor Stan Kong will work with students to explore exciting educational and career opportunities related to the product design profession. Beginning students learn fundamental design processes and techniques through hands-on projects.

During the 3-week workshop, students will be introduced to the industrial design fields which include: product, transportation, environmental, entertainment, and interactive design. Students will undertake design problems resulting in projects suitable for a beginning portfolio while gaining exposure to ArtCenter and college life.

The EXPLORE program is not sponsored or endorsed by California Institute of Technology; University of California, Los Angeles; Art College of Design; Southern California Institute of Architecture; or University of Southern California.