HHMI Education Group Seminar: Mandana Sassanfar

Dr. Mandana Sassanfar will be giving an HHMI Education Group Meeting next Wednesday, February 29th @ 3 pm.

We hope that you will be able to join us for this event!

title: Engaging Young Students in Research, Problem Solving, and Troubleshooting

Location: Biology Building, 68-180

Dr. Mandana Sassanfar is a biology instructor and the Director of Diversity and Science Outreach in the Biology Department at MIT. She holds a B.S. and M.S. degrees in Biochemistry from the University of Pierre et Marie Curie and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Cornell University. She organizes many outreach activities that are aimed at fostering research interests in high school students, high school teachers, and undergraduate students.

Through early research experiences, Dr. Sassanfar believes students’ interests in basic science and research will develop and continue to grow. These experiences include class field trips to MIT and developing novel hands-on laboratory protocols for high school science classes as well as summer workshops and research internships for high school teachers. In addition, she organizes an intensive summer research internship program for advanced undergraduate students from institutions with few research opportunities. During the Independent Activity period (IAP), Dr. Sassanfar leads an intensive 6-day quantitative biology workshop for undergraduate students from partner minority-serving institutions and teaches a 2-week intensive IAP lab course for MIT freshmen. Additionally, Dr. Sassanfar coordinates the “HHMI special seminar” and the “Conversations with Scientists” series of talks. She is also involved in the selection of a faculty member from a minority-serving institution to participate in a summer mini-sabbatical program in a research laboratory at MIT.

Dr. Sassanfar is also the Director of the Massachusetts Junior Academy of Science and has received the Summer Institute Award for Teacher Education by the Massachusetts Department of Education, a Certificate of Distinction in Undergraduate Teaching by the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University, and special awards from Somerville High School and the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez.

Refreshments will be provided.