Biomedical students in Jamie Jobe and Megan Kemper’s science classes learned from 13 graduate students from Washington University in St. Louis during a research showcase in the Pattonville High School library. 

“I have partnered with Dr. Spencer Lake's musculoskeletal research lab in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis for the past two school years,” Jobe said. “He received a grant from the National Science Foundation and part of that is to partner with high school students and expose them to biomedical research, and because of that, I have been able to take my seniors to Washington University to see research in action.”

This year, the staff at Pattonville High School and Washington University are expanding the outreach to reach even more of the high school biomedical students.

Ryan Castile is a research lab technician in the mechanical engineering department at Washington University in St. Louis and co-planned the event. He graduated from Pattonville High School in 2009 and is a connection between the two schools. 

“I knew that we had the biomedical science group here at Pattonville and since only the seniors got to visit us in the fall, I thought coming here would be a great way of getting all interested students involved.”

Lake is an associate professor and focuses on musculoskeletal soft tissue mechanics. All of the graduate students that presented their research are currently working toward their PhD degrees. 

“We brought in 10 stations and they were able to present and demonstrate their work to the high school students,” Lake said. “We wanted our students to bring something so they could share and talk about their biomedical science projects.”

View photo gallery: https://pattonvillesd.smugmug.com/2022-2023/Wash-U-Presentations/