Curiosity in and out of TRIP! by Alan Meng

Hi everyone! I’m Alan Meng, a junior at Wissahickon High School in Ambler, PA. I grew up in Massachusetts for the first 2 years of my life before moving to the greater Philadelphia area. I first heard of TRIP from my school’s college counselor, who had recommended it to anyone interested in science or just wanting to experience lab work. Since I have always enjoyed experimenting with Legos, tending plants in my family’s garden, and cooking, I felt that TRIP would be an excellent opportunity to apply that interest to something with real-world relevance and something that is beyond my comfort zone. Another reason why I decided to get involved with TRIP was to meet and work with a group of people with a shared interest/goal, as well as explore possible career paths. When I was applying, and even now, I am still not 100% that I would like to pursue a career in STEM. However, Dr. Austria and the rest of the TRIP staff have reinforced the message that this program is designed for students to explore the STEM field and gauge whether they enjoy research, which I found very reassuring.

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At school, some of the classes I found the most interesting are AP Calculus because of how many applications it has to everyday life, and Chemistry because of the depth of knowledge it requires. I am a part of my school's chess club, and have been playing since I was 8, and I am a part of my school's volleyball team. Outside of that, I like to do activities to explore the endless career options there are in the world. I participate in my school’s FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America), where I help organize speaker and fundraising events and compete at the state and national levels in areas such as supply chain management and public administration. I volunteer at some of my local state senators' public events to engage with my community, address public concerns, and become a more effective communicator. I also work as a server at a local retirement home, cook for fun, and enjoy hanging out with friends!

My first day of TRIP was filled with activities to better understand the lab equipment as well as my peers. To get to know each other better, we did an icebreaker on fun facts about ourselves and we took group photos. To become more accustomed to the main lab and prep room area, we did a scavenger hunt to locate basic lab tools and safety equipment. Afterwards, we did demos with micropipettes before making our fly food for our kickoff experiments! In my experiment, I will study if “circadian rhythms affect female fertility?” and whether diet could protect against disruption of the light/dark cycle. I will be using valerian, an herbal remedy used to improve sleep quality, as part of the fruit flies' diet, and using tinfoil to wrap around the fruit fly vials as my stressor.

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All in all, I am super excited to continue with my kickoff experiment and continue to collaborate with the awesome people I met this Saturday! I can tell that TRIP will be an enriching experience for me to grow as a learner and as an experimenter!