IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2012 - 36

its ASRP. I arranged a meeting with Mrs.
Cary Sneider-A Ph.D. Story
Schmahl, the executive director, and my
I'm delighted to have this opportunity
mom drove me to the workshop one day
to share my perceptions of SSW and the
after school. Although my family did not
organization's founder and intellectual
have the funds to pay the fees of the proleader, Belinda Schmahl. I originally
gram, Mrs. Schmahl generously offered
met Belinda and her team in March
me a scholarship, which would allow
2008, when I was asked by the direcme to develop a project to submit to the
tor of the Noyce Foundation to conlocal science fair.
duct a site visit of the SSW in San Jose,
After months of hard work, during
California. I attended a professional
which I also obtained donations from
development workshop conducted by
companies and research foundations
Belinda and her senior staff for their
to fund my project, I discovered several
instructors and observed classes in
inhibitors of beta amyloid (the protein
three local schools. The following are
thought to be neurotoxic in Alzheimsome excerpts from my report:
er's disease) induced neuroinflamma"Although it is common even for hightion and microglial hyperproliferation,
ly regarded science teachers to engage
which represent potential therapeutics
just the most interested students, virtualon Alzheimer's, a disease characterized
ly all of the students in the science classes
by long-term neurotoxic inflammation.
that I observed were on-task and having
Since then, I have received several
a ball! I was especially impressed that in
awards from research associations and
every Schmahl workshop that I saw, the
science fairs for my work, which
instructors were very clear about
I now conduct at a labothe concepts that they
ratory at the Stanford
were trying to teach, voThe many
Medical School. Due
cabulary terms were
accolades of
to the skills the
clearly defined verthe alumni of the
mentors at t he
bally, and through
workshop taught
pictures, models,
ASRP are a testament
me, I have now
and even a skit,
to the great achievements
had the opporand time was rethat are possible for
tunity to work at
served after the acany child with the
several different
tivities for students
right
facilities and
laboratories in fields
to reflect on the lesranging from molecuson and answer quesmentorship.
lar imaging to stem cell
tions about what they had
research, all of which have
learned."
added to my desire to become a scien"The professional development
tist one day. If not for the initial generosworkshop for Schmahl staff was equally
ity of Mrs. Schmahl to allow me to work
well planned and executed as the lesat the workshop on scholarship, I doubt
sons for the students and provided both
any of this would have been possible.
a sense of camaraderie among the staff
I am just one of the many students
as well as insights into the fine points
whose lives have been transformed by
of teaching."
the workshop since its founding in 1996
"There are several programs offered
by four children and their parents. The
by the Schmahl team that serve difworkshop only has limited funds for
ferent audiences in different contexts
scholarships, and we cannot help all the
and more than 400 different workshops
disadvantaged students that we would
(lessons) on various topics in science
like to see exposed to the wonderful
and technology. All of these components
world of science. The many accolades of
of the Schmahl model were developed
the alumni of the ASRP are a testament
in response to the needs of K-12 stuto the great achievements that are posdents in the region, and the current
sible for any child with the right facilieducational climate in California and
ties and mentorship.
the nation."

IEEE women in engineering magazine

DECEMBER 2012

My report concluded:
"Conducting this site review has
been a tremendously satisfying task.
As a science educator, I have been
depressed about the sorry state of science and engineering education in our
country. However, seeing the young and
enthusiastic Schmahl instructors get
students to perch on the edges of their
seats to learn restores my faith in the
future. I hope that at least some aspects
of the model will eventually take root in
other parts of the country."
-Nancy Salim

A.I. and M.I.T.
Luperfoy adeptly balances work
and life issues

With a sense of humor, a bubbly personality, and a busy schedule, Dr. Susann
Luperfoy, executive director of the
Undergraduate Practice Opportunities
Program (UPOP) at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), talks
about her program at MIT, her career,
and the challenges of juggling twins and
being a full-time engineer.
Before joining UPOP as executive
director in 2007, Luperfoy spent most
of her career as a research scientist and
engineer in applied artificial intelligence
(AI). She has experience in academia,
government, and industry spanning
diverse organizations, from pre-IPO
startups to mature public corporations
and research labs. Her technical training and applied research centered on
the domain of AI, with an emphasis on
knowledge representation, spoken dialog, machine translation, computational discourse, acoustic phonetics, and
intelligent tutoring systems. Following
postdoctoral research on interpreting
telephony in Kyoto, Japan, Luperfoy
taught AI and linguistics at Georgetown
University for eight years, where she also
guided graduate research in AI and natural language processing topics.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2012.2215262
Date of publication: 1 November 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2012