NEXTech:202X
Nano Electrochemistry eXtensions to Technology
 the Penner Group Highschool Outreach Program.

NEXTech 202X is no longer in operation. The reason is that the Penner research group has been reduced in size to a single student, now in June 2024. This is a consequence of my impending retirement on July 1, 2024. NEXTech 202X has provided an invaluable learning experience for the graduate students and postdocs who have operated it for more than twenty years, and to the high school students who participated. Interest in the program from highschool students has been tremendous every year, and (to my knowledge) ALL of our graduates have proceeded to colleges and universities in subsequent years. It is with gratitude to our many participants and our instructors that we sunset this program.

Reg Penner

During our most recent NEXTech in summer 2022 we had six outstanding high school students working together with us (See above). This brings to fifty four the total number of high school students who have pursued independent research projects under the supervision of myself and senior graduate students. This web site has produced visibility for our program beyond the City of Irvine and since 2006 we have attracted students from Aliso Viejo (2), Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley (1), Fullerton (2), Los Alamitos (1), Mission Viejo, Newport Beach (1), Santa Ana (6), Valencia (2), and Villa Park (2). The map below shows the city of origin (as a blue dot) for each of our participants.


Map of Orange County indicating (as blue dots) the geographical distribution of participants in the Penner Group High School Outreach Program.

Students engaged in our outreach program often prepare posters for presentation at the Orange County Science Fair (OCSF). These presentations have been well received and as indicated in the Table, several have been selected at OCSF for presentation at the California State Science Fair (CSSF). Irrespective of the degree of success attained by each student in the laboratory, these students have all been enthusiastic and engaged in their research, which occurs under the direct supervision of a senior graduate student in the laboratory.



Two Penner Group High School Outreach Fellowship All Stars in Action:
LEFT: Ervin Meneses (Santa Ana High Schoool) examines an array of gold nanowires, summer 2010.
Ervin is a sophomore at Union College, Schenectady, New York this fall, 2012. Ervin was the first recipient of the Penner Group High School Outreach Fellowship sponsored and funded by National Science Foundation.
RIGHT: Johncarlo Mensa (Santa Ana High School) is aligning a lithographic mask on a sample to prepare it for the growth of nanowires, summer 2011. Johncarlo is presently (fall 2012) a freshman at Allegeny College in Pennsylvania. He was the second recipient of the Penner Group High School Outreach Fellowship sponsored and funded by the NSF.

They're Great!
Two students (Rei Wu and Swetha Kambhampati) competed in the Siemans-Westinghouse Competition (https:// siemenscompetition.discoveryeducation.com). the most prestigious science competition for high school students in the U.S., and both were recognized as semifinalists. We have had a total of 50 participants to date, and of these, at least 42 of our ``alumni'' have already been accepted to, are currently attending, or have graduated from, colleges including: UC Berkeley (9 alumni), MIT (5), Caltech (3), Stanford (3), UCLA (3), Harvard (2), UCSD (2), Dartmouth (1), Upenn (1), UC Irvine (1), Union College (1), Wellesley (1), UC Davis (1), UC Merced (1), CSU Fullerton (1), Allegany College (1) (See table below for a complete list).

More about NEXTech 2023.
NEXTech 2023 will involve a 4 week course in Electrochemistry (dates TBD). You will attend a laboratory series Monday through Friday for 4 hours a day, from 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm, for these four weeks. Laboratory experiments in electrochemistry will illustrate key concepts, leading to an understand of the research in the Penner lab. Over the 4 weeks you will explore the following concepts:

  1. electrical and ionic conduction in materials,
  2. understanding electrochemical cells,
  3. measuring current and potentials,
  4. electrodeposition.
  5. fabrication of a biosensor or nanowire catalyst.

You'll also learn the various types of instrumentation that is used in electrochemistry to gather data such as: a potentiostat, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy,and X-ray diffraction. As well as learning laboratory skills the students will attend bi-weekly group meetings where they will learn more details about the projects that are being researched in the Penner lab. Collaboration is very important in science and these meetings will teach you how to interact with fellow lab members and how to approach difficulties in research by interacting with other scientists.

In the last week and a half of the program you will design a mini electrochemistry experiment of your own, building your ability to think independently and allowing you the opportunity to explore a particular area of electrochemistry. This will involve conceiving of an electrochemical experiment, learning the background and setup of the experiment, collecting data, and compiling this information into a presentation that will be presented on the last day of the program. Graduates are encouraged to present a poster at the Orange County Science Fair (OCSF).

Still interested? Fantastic! Now, here are the...

NEXTech 2023 Admission requirements:.
We welcome applications from students meeting the following criteria.
NEXTech 2023 Application Documents.
Please send the following to Ms. Vivian Chen: dragon@uci.edu by April 15, 2023.

Table. Students Participating in the Penner Group High School Outreach Programs: 2001-Present (reverse chronological order).

Student
Period of Association
Graduation Year
High School
Present Status
Vy Tran summer 2022 2023 Fountain Valley HS, Fountain Valley Senior at Fountain Valley HS
Lauren Van summer 2022 2023 Portola High School, Irvine Senior at Portola HS
Madeline Pinches summer 2022 2023 Los Alamitos High School, Las Alamitos Senior at Los Alamitos HS
Minho Beak summer 2022 2023 Woodbridge HS Irvine Senior at Woodbridge HS Irvine
Maria Gorodetski summer 2022 2023 University High School, Irvine Senior at UniHigh Irvine
Tamar Figotin summer 2022 2023 University High School, Irvine Senior at UniHigh Irvine
Suryadip Bandyopadhyay summer 2018 2019 University High School, Irvine Senior at UniHigh Irvine, fall 2018.
Juslyn Chan summer 2018 2019 Marina HS, Huntington Beach Senior at Marina HS, Huntington Bch, fall 2018.
Youssef Kallel summer 2018 2019 Corona del Mar High School, Corona del Mar Senior at CDM HS, fall 2018.
Alexandra Lai summer 2018 2019 Villa Park High School, Villa Park. Senor at Villa Park HS, fall 2018.
Andrew Song summer 2018 2019 Yorba Linda HS, Yorba Linda Senior at Yorba Linda HS, fall 2018.
Anivirit Subramaniam summer 2018 2020 University High School, Irvine Junior at UniHigh Irvine, fall 2018.
Stephen Lantin 6/13 to 7/13 and
6/15 to 7/15		 2016 University High School, Irvine Junior at UC Santa Barbara, fall 2018.
Aurnov Chattopadhyay 6/15 to 7/15 2017 University High School, Irvine Sophomore (Davis Scholar) at Columbia University, fall 2018.
Victoria Lee 6/15 to 7/15 2016 Fountain Valley High School Junior at UC Berkeley, fall 2018.
Kristin Vagara 6/15 to 7/15 2016 Huntington Beach High School Junior at Cornell, fall 2018.
Salvador Verduzco 6/15 to 7/15 2016 Godinez Fundamental School, Santa Ana Junior at USC, fall 2018!
Andrew Liu 6/14 to 7/14 2015 Oxford Academy, Cypress Senior at UC Berkeley, fall 2018.
Aviva Myers 6/14 to 7/14 2015 Laguna Beach High School Senior at Stanford, fall 2018.
Jennifer Mendoza* 6/14 to 7/14 2015 Santa Ana High School Senior at California State University, Fullerton, fall 2018.
Kelly Mendoza* 6/14 to 7/14 2015 Godinez Fundamental School, Santa Ana Senior at UC Merced, fall 2018.
Eleni Andrikos 6/13 to 7/13 2015 Orange County School of the Arts
Santa Ana		 Senior at UC Davis, fall 2018.
Kruthi Renduchintala 6/12 to 7/13 2015 University High School, Irvine Senior at UC Berkeley, fall 2018.
Albert Tung 6/12 to 7/13 2014 University High School, Irvine Senior at Stanford, fall 2018.
Joon Hee Lee 6/13 to 7/13 2014 Arnold O. Beckman High School, Tustin Junior at Caltech, fall 2016.
Kimberly Venegas* 6/13 to 7/13 2014 Santa Ana High School A senior at Santa Ana High School, fall 2014.
Daisy Andres* 6/13 to 7/13 2014 Santa Ana High School Freshman at UCLA, fall 2014.
Erick Andres* 6/12 to 9/12 2013 Santa Ana High School Sophomore at UC Berkeley, fall 2014.
Deven Patel 6/12 to present 2014 Villa Park High School Sophomore at UCLA, fall 2014.
Cliff Kao 6/11 to 9/11 2013 University High School, Irvine 2nd place, International Chemistry Olympiad, 2012! Congrats Cliff!
Sophomore at UPenn, fall 2014.
Melissa Huang 6/11 to 9/11 2013 Foothill High School, Tustin Sophomore at UC Irvine, fall 2014
Johncarlo Menza* 6/11 to 9/11 2012 Santa Ana High School Freshman, Allegheny College , fall 2012.
Yash Desai 6/11 to 9/11 2013 University High School, Irvine Sophomore at UC Berkeley, fall 2013.
Ashley Park 6/11 to 9/11 2013 University High School, Irvine Sophomore at Wellesley College, fall 2013.
Felicia Hsu 4/10 to 9/10 2011 Valencia High School Sophomore at MIT, fall 2012.
Ervin Meneses* 6/10 to 9/10 2011 Santa Ana High School Freshman at Union College,
Schenectady, New York, fall 2011.
Sam Kim 9/09 to 12/09 2011 Aliso Niguel High School Sophomore at Harvard, fall 2012.
Catherine Dong 6/09 to 9/09 2012 Northwood High School, Irvine TBA
Vivek Abraham 2/09 to 8/09 2012 University High School, Irvine TBA
Jennifer Kadowlski 5/09 to 8/09 2010 Troy High School, Fullerton Junior at UCLA, fall 2012
Ayan Kusari 8/08 to 3/09 2011 University High School, Irvine Sophomore at UCSD, fall 2012.
Pratiksha Thanker 8/08 to 12/08 2010 University High School, Irvine Junior at MIT, fall 2012.
Chasen Stark 6/06 to 8/08 2009 University High School, Irvine Senior at USC, fall 2012.
Jonathan Noguchi summer 2008 2008 Troy High School, Fullerton Senior at Stanford University, fall 2012.
Aashish Varma 5/07 to 8/08 2008 Estancia High School, Costa Mesa Sophomore at Cal Berkeley, fall 2012.
Adam Khan 4/07 to 8/08 2008 University High School, Irvine Sophomore at Caltech, fall 2012.
Micca Hecht 4/07 to 8/08 2008 Tarbat V'Torah, Irvine Junior at MIT, fall 2012.
Dat Hoang 6/06 to 8/07 2007 Trabuco High School, Mission Viejo Graduated Berkeley 2011,
grad. student at Columbia in Chemistry, fall 2012.
Johan Hoang 8/05 to 6/06 2006 University High School, Irvine Graduated Harvard
Swetha Kambhampati 10/04 to 6/06 2006 University High School, Irvine Swetha wins Merage American Dream Fellowship!.
Graduated MIT in 2010
Sherwin Doroudi 6/04 to 9/04 2005 Sage Hill High School, Irvine Graduated Caltech.
Trevor Granger 6/04 to 9/04 2004 Sage Hill High School, Irvine Graduated Dartmouth.
Keidi He 8/03 to 1/06 2004 University High School, Irvine Graduated UC Berkeley, 2011.
Albert Linden 6/03 to 3/04 2004 University High School, Irvine Graduated UC Berkeley, 2010.
Rui Wu 6/02 to 8/03 2003 University High School, Irvine Graduated MIT.
Jeff Chen 9/01 to 5/02 2002 University High School, Irvine Graduated UC Berkeley 2004,
CEO of Mertex Technologies.
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© 2024, Reginald M. Penner