USC STAR Program: STEM Education Success Story In Boyle Heights Celebrates 25 Years

Contact: Kukla Vera at (323) 442-3497, (310) 795-5552 (cell) or Kvera@pharmacy.usc.edu

WHAT: STEM education has become a national priority, but in LA’s Boyle Heights, it’s been thriving for 25 years. Through USC’s STAR program, Bravo Medical Magnet High School students learn science through intensive hands-on, graduate-level work in USC labs, making them part of high-caliber research teams whose work is often published in leading scientific journals.

And they are only in high school.

What is the secret to this program where 100 percent of its students go to college, many at the nation’s elite universities? Take Elvia Ahmed ’13, a Princeton student whose STAR experience helped her land a competitive research position as a freshman. Or Joseph Fouad, who while attending Harvard, is doing research at Boston Children’s Hospital. And then there’s STAR poster child Arthur Ohannessian ’00, who was the first in his family to go to college and is now a UCLA practicing physician working with the underserved.

WHO: Meet STAR students and graduates, many of whom are recent immigrants and first in their family to attend college.

Meet STAR alumni, now leaders in their chosen fields

Talk to STAR Director Roberta Diaz Brinton and learn how this program so successfully molds the next generations of STEM innovators

WHEN: Friday, August 1 from 5 to 8 p.m.

WHERE: USC Health Sciences Campus — Plaza Market Place & Café (SRH on map): https://web-app.usc.edu/maps/?b=psc#hsc

Media interviews in English and Spanish are available.