- Anne Arundel County Public Schools
- Mentorships in AACPS
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The Next Step Mentorship
Dr. Murray Korman, physics professor at the United States Naval Academy, has designed a dynamic one-year mentorship for 11th grade students of Anne Arundel County Public Schools. The mentorship will expose participants to an array of experiences – from research and data collection to graphic design and service learning – and the opportunity seeks open-minded students who possess a number of the following qualities:
- Interest in mathematics and science
- Interest in art, creative writing, and the humanities
- Experience or interest in research and data collection
- Experience and/or interest in theater arts
- Interest in music and/or learning about building instruments
- Knowledge of or interest in Graphic Design
- Interest in volunteerism and service learning
- Interest in philosophy and/or religious studies
Apply today. 2022 - 2023 application is being accepted until September 30, 2022.






Contacts
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Lori Fowler
Manager of Service Learning and Mentorships
ldfowler@aacps.org
410-222-5391Mary Tillar
Asst. Superintendent, Advanced Studies and Programs
mtillar@aacps.org
410-222-5390
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STUDENT SUCCESS STORIES!
Past Mentees in the who participated in the Next Step Mentorship Include:
Next Step Mentorship, updates on student success stories:
Miahanna Nguyen, South River HS class of 2016: Miahanna was a mentee during her senior year, while attending South River. She worked on acoustic and landmine detection problems. She graduated from USNA 2020 as an economics major and is now a Naval Officer in the fleet.
Joshua Lewis, Annapolis HS Class of 2017: Josua was a mentee during his senior year at South River. He worked on acoustic landmine detection problems. Currently studying at the United States Military Academy, West Point; Capital Gazette “Teen of the Week,” Jan 22, 2016.
Emily Santos, Glen Burnie HS Class of 2017: Currently a Bio-Pre-Med major at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Graduated UMBC 2021, majoring in psychology, minoring in photography. She was a mentee during her junior and senior years in HS, and a college intern with full summer support during all four years at UMBC. Emily has two publications, 4 presentations at conferences including Minneapolis, Boston, Santa Fe, and Madrid. Emily’s work includes studies in granular material interactions with a clamped elastic plate, nonlinear resonances involving, sand, dry or wetted, granular media including dry edible cereals or grains, dry or wetted glass beams – with different diameters, nonlinear acoustic landmine detection, detection of ground booby traps using sound waves for the US Army Research Lab, and designing, building and testing of rf circuits.
Blair Lewis, Glen Burnie HS Class of 2017: Currently pursuing a Nursing degree at James Madison University; Graduated in Elementary Education 2021, Earned a MS in Elem Ed in 2022, Starts teaching in a California elementary school this Fall 2022. [ Blair was a mentee during her junior and senior year in HS and worked on nonlinear acoustics, acoustic landmine detection, and vibration of granular material (sand or pebbles and edible granular material.
Ebonie Smith, Glen Burnie HS Class of 2017: Currently a Liberal Arts major at Mount Saint Mary's University (received a full 4 year scholarship); Graduated in 2021. [ Ebonie was a mentee during her junior and senior year in HS and worked on nonlinear acoustics, acoustic landmine detection, and vibration of granular material (sand or pebbles and edible granular material.]
Clair Haas, Broadneck HS Class of 2017: Currently graduated with a BS and a MS from Univ. of MD. College Park in foreign relations, international studies and some political science. Claire was a mentee her senior year and stayed on as a college intern for a summer and six more months while attending AACC and feeding in the U of MD’s prestigious advanced study program. [Clair worked on acoustic landmine detection and in particular the study of wetted and dry glass beads between the diameters of 2 to 10 mm. Claire measured the nonlinear tuning curve vibration response vs. frequency for 2mm then 3mm then, … , 10 mm beads in an apparatus called a clamped elastic plate soil (or sand or granular media) oscillator. Her scientific results from careful measurement were presented at an ASA Meeting in Boston. Claire also worked on a Dolphin-Sonar book chapter for my Springer/ASA book project – during that key time in her summer after graduation and during her fall at AACC. Claire received a Dept. of Defense internship several years ago and has stayed on doing key studies for the US.]
Kate Haas, Broadneck HS Class of 2018: Currently a Bio-PreMed major at Saint Mary's College; staying on for a 9th semester with more bio-premed courses this fall. Will graduate in Dec 2022. [ Kate was a mentee her senior year in HS and a College intern for three years (mostly summers) while at Saint Mary’s College. Kate has two publications and a 3rd one on the way in October 2022. Kate’s work is in Nonlinear acoustics doing ultrasonic bubble levitation, nonlinear scattering of crossed sound beams in the presence of a bubble in water and the nonlinear scattering of crossed sound beams in the presence of turbulent jet flow in water.]
Jenna Cartron, Meade HS Class of 2018: Currently a Material Science major at The Johns Hopkins University; Graduated 2022 and currently started her 1st job with an engineering company in Rayleigh, NC. [Jenna did one year of mentorship during her senior year of HS and gave a paper in Santa Fe along with a demonstration of her experiment involving the nonlinear interaction of two crossed ultrasonic streaming jets in water. Jenna has two publications. Jenna was a college intern doing work during winter breaks and part time for four summers.]
Ava Lusby, South River HS Class of 2019: Recently accepted to the United States Naval Academy, where she will commence her studies in the 2019-2020 academic year! Ava Lusby in entering her senior year at USNA, and is an Operations Research Major. [Ava was a mentee working with her Dad Tom Lusby and Mentor Professor Korman doing acoustic landmine detection her Freshman year in HS. Then doing a formal mentorship in her junior and senior years. Ava’s work on acoustic landmine detection involved the use of a Laser Doppler Vibrometer. She was slated to deliver a paper in Madrid the summer after her senior year, but upon acceptance to USNA, could not attend – but here paper was read by her mentor on her behalf. Ava won a prize in her HS science fair as a freshman and has one publication.]
Ava Twitty, Southern HS Class of 2020 is going into her junior year at Townson University. She is majoring in speech pathology. [ Ava was a mentee her junior and senior year (2018-2019) and (2019-2020) doing nonlinear acoustics and building a buried landmine simulant with instrumentation and setting up airborne acoustic landmine detection experiment to measure the nonlinear vibration response of the sand surface that was over the buried simulant. Ava has one publication and two presentation – in Louisville, KY and in Madrid. Ava stayed on as a part-time college intern for two years and had a poster presentation during Covid 19. The topic was ultrasonic imaging of a spherical target in the presence of cylindrical clutter rods.
Cassidy Green, Southern HS Class of 2021 is now going into her sophomore year at Kaiser University, in Florida. [Cassidy was a mentee her senior year in HS and worked of the yard doing projects in Mathematica for computer imaging, working on electronics, building and testing stepper motor controllers and rf amplifier circuits. Cassidy was able to balance her mentorship with lacrosse. She is on the lacrosse team at her college.]
Leah Burge, a South River HS Class of 2021 student did 3 years of Mentorship and won two prizes in science fairs (her sophomore and senior year). Leah Burge is currently in her second year at AACC and has played soccer both her freshman and sophomore year. She is a work study student. [Leah did mentorship during her sophomore, junior and senior years in HS. Leah has 4 presentations and did half her mentorship during Covid-19. Leah a straight A student, taking honors course in HS, only received grades of A throughout K-12th grade. Leah worked for two years developing an original experiment on photo-acoustics. This work has been presented at Acoustical Society of Am. Meetings. Leah also worked on electronics, light absorption in diluted green dye and India ink, focusing light using aspherical lenses, designing and soldering low noise amplifier circuits and got her experiment to work! In her first year Leah work on the nonlinear scattering of crossed ultrasonic beans through a submerges and water filled thin tube. The tube acted as a vein and a blockage was introduced which generated turbulent flow. The blockage was interchangeable circular orifice plates. These obstructions generated vorticies and turbulent flow in the thin acrylic tube. The nonlinear scattering was correlated with the amount of turbulence generated by the blockage. Leah received two science fair prizes for this work as a HS sophomore.]
Denise Burge, a South River HS class of 2023 has done two years of Mentorship during her sophomore and junior year. Prior to that Denise Burge did research projects for her mentor dating back to eighth grade. Denise has been accepted to NSA (Fort Meade) as a high school intern for her fall-spring 2022-2023 academic year. [Denise is currently writing a book “Raspberry Pi Experiments with Python Coding.” Working mostly remotely or at the library or Panera Bread, Denise worked on steeper motors, electronics, Raspberry Pi experiments. She received internship funding for her summer job and is currently writing her book.]
Tiffany Bixler, Northern HS Class of 2017 has done two years of mentorship her junior and senior year (2017-2018) and (2018-2019); then one year of being a college intern (2019-2020). Tiffany Bixler has completed two years of study at AACC (2019-2020 and 2020-2021) studying bio-med and has been accepted at Univ. of Maryland, College Park, to continue her bio-med studies as a junior in college this Fall 2022. [Tiffany worked on restaurant transient noise measurement using sound level meters, an iphone with a recorder app and measured all types of transient sound during her junior year and senior year. As a second project, as a HS senior and then as a college intern, Tiffany studied slurring of notes in French Horn classic music. Tiffany has been to Louisville and Madrid giving research paper. She has one publication and several presentations.]
Tiara Bixler, Northern HS Class of 2022, has done two years of mentorship in her junior and senior year (2020-2021) and (2021-2022). In her HS senior year, Tiara Bixler was accepted to NSA (Fort Meade) as a high school intern for her fall-spring 2021-2022 academic year. Tiara is going to Towson University as a Freshman studying Business and Engineering while staying on at NSA as a college intern. Tiara first learned Mathematica, then built and tested circuits to eventually build all the electronic and apparatus parts for a home-made experiment involving circular synthetic aperture sonar C-SAS. Tia designed and help build all the instrumentation for a small aquarium and a large aquarium apparatus. Here, an ultrasonic transducer both sent and received sound that scattered from a rotational target platform. The target was a sphere and the clutter rods served to try to mask the target. But in both cases, carefully measuring echo vs. time records for over 100 discrete angle per data run, Tiara could successfully detect and image the target sphere. Tiara has one presentation and a future publication – on the way.
Under the tutelage of Dr. Murray Korman, mentees have co-authored and published posters, abstracts, and papers that have been accepted and presented at national conferences. Feel welcome to peruse the students' work below!
Poster - Vibration experiments using a clamped circular elastic plate - Blair Lewis and Ebonie Smith