Students in all three divisions celebrated everything STEM on Thursday, April 18, during EA's 2nd annual STEMposium. In addition to independent research presentations by more than 40 Upper School students, two Middle School students, and three Lower School students, this year's event featured interactive activities by clubs, classes, and extracurriculars, as well as special activities for Middle and Lower School students. Some of this year's fan-favorites included demonstrations of the Anatomage Table, a STEM discovery station on why bubbles are iridescent, an up-close look at the Robotics team's competition robots, PJAS student research presentations, hands-on STEM manipulatives, and a smile-detection photo booth from the Honors Artificial Intelligence class.

"The 2nd annual STEMposium was an amazing event," said Upper School Science Teacher Katie Colyer. "It was wonderful to see so many people across campus and beyond celebrating our students who are engaged in many unique and inspiring STEM activities. They have worked hard all year to be celebrated at this event, and I'm very proud of each one of them!"

During this year's "jam-packed" event in Maple Family Hall, the school-wide celebration ran almost nonstop from 9:15 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., with programming for each division and a special community-wide open house in the evening.

Beyond the bustling activities in Maple Family Hall, a tent was set up just outside the Hill Science Center for Lower Schoolers to engage in a special Earth Day activities, including making wildflower seed clusters and creating collaborative art work to celebrate Earth Day.

"The STEMposium team worked very intentionally to include thoughtful and age-appropriate ways for Lower School students to participate in this year's event," said Lower School Science Teacher Catherine Bennett, Hon. 

The seed clusters, once dried, were distributed in a field next to the Lower School Playground on Earth Day, April 22. "Now, students will be able to watch them grow and help our native bug community all spring!" Ms. Bennett said.

Additionally, Middle School students spent the afternoon engaged in various STEM stations, including tackling math and team-building challenges, making wildflower seed clusters, and creating sun prints.

"We wouldn't have been able to pull off an event this size without help from many people across campus, but especially the STEMposium Planning Committee," Dr. Colyer said.

This year's committee included Dr. Colyer, Ms. Bennett, Upper School Science Teacher Cheryl Cossel, Upper School Science Teacher Jenn Jones, Interim Science Department Grace Limaye '90, Computer Science & Engineering Chair Matt Memmo, Hon., Upper School Math Teacher Tracy Motley, and Middle School Math Teacher Allison Schultz, Hon. The Student Committee included Jacob Kim '25, Cassidy Ott '25, Mahika Ralhan '26, Izzy Rozes '24, and Delaney Welsh '24.

Dr. Colyer explained that while celebrating the STEM accomplishments of our students is a large part of the day, this annual event is also an opportunity for students to check out ways they might want to get involved in STEM in the coming years. "We were especially excited that we had three 5th grade students and two 7th graders who completed individual research projects this year alongside the Upper Schoolers," she said. "It is such a unique opportunity that EA offers research opportunities at all, but especially for those as young as 5th grade." 

The following students presented during STEMposium this year:

5th Grade
Eddie Ghobrial; Justin Liu; and James Yang

7th Grade
Sophie McGarry and Yashvi Kiran

9th Grade
Sophie Bouvel; Isabel Ding; Muriel Fitz-Kaltenmeier; Natalie Jiang; Kamau Kegler; Micah Kim; Arjun Kulkarni; Boden Moraski; Connor Myers; CJ Nichols; and Lucas van Binsbergen

10th Grade
Daniel Adibi; Emma Anderson; Lawson Cale; Michael Chadwick; Ivie Enakhimion; Sofia Foulds; Chloe Islam; Mason Jiang; Brian Le; Quinn McHale; Mahika Ralhan; Max Rutherford; Ishaan Singh; Khoi Tran; Lilian Wang; Abigail Whitman; and Alice Wu

11th Grade
Shea Chambers; Paige Clemmer; Rohan Dalal; David Ding; Elle Dupont; Elizabeth Hug; Ishani Khanna; Jacob Kim; JD Krasnick; Dylan Lorello; Calvin Mackenzie; Olivia Mandeville; Ellie Moran; Cassidy Ott; Tatum Schmedlem; and Aaron Zhu

12th grade
Jack Cellucci; Michelle Jiang; Izzy Rozes; Gavin Schmidt; Rohan Sivakumar; Alyssa Sterner; Roh Tsundupalli; Delaney Welsh; Ethan Wyatt-Wang; Joseph Xu; and Julianna Yates