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Fostering Meaningful Academic Relationships read throughout our alums' Trevor experiences were deep and meaningful relationships with teachers and mentors. For Madison, the faculty-student relationships were her favorite part of being a student at Trevor: "I loved how e Center made teachers so approachable and allowed me to collaborate with them beyond the classroom and really feel like we were on the same team. I think that experience made me less hesitant to stop by office hours in college and to build relationships with professors that turned into research projects and more." Daneil feels similarly about the impact of e Center. "I think having teachers set up their desks out in the common areas to allow easy access to students was brilliant," he says. "I remember just how relieving it was to be able to easily discuss anything with people like Dr. Henry and Mr. Tam. Dr. Henry wanted nothing more than to encourage her students' interests in science. She even offered me the opportunity to observe and help her with some of her physics research back then. What I admired most about her was her clear love for science. She was a great person, great teacher, and great advisor, who definitely helped spark my interest in science that continues today. I know that being able to effortlessly build relationships like these allowed me to have more confidence with developing relationships with my future instructors." During Eli's time at Brandeis, he worked in an organic materials chemistry laboratory under professor Grace G.D. Han. Eli credits Dr. Han for much of his undergraduate success, and says she was also the first to recognize that his research results were worthy of being published, with Eli as lead author. (In academic publishing, the author listed first on a published article is most often the one who has done the most research and has written and edited the paper.) "e experience developing faculty-student relationships at Trevor definitely prepared me for visiting college professors to connect with them," Eli emphasizes. "is is actually how I was able to become a teaching assistant for organic chemistry and how I connected so much with professor Han in college." Since publishing his research, Eli has often had to paraphrase the esoteric title and concept of his paper, "Self- Assembly of Bowlic Supramolecules on Graphene Imaged at the Individual Molecular Level Using Heavy Atom Tagging." "In simpler terms," Eli explains, "I'm playing connect the dots with some cone/ bowl-shaped molecules that I synthesized. e molecules contain a Tungsten atom (Atomic Number 74, symbol: W on the periodic table), which acts as a 'label' at the tip of the cone shape. ese molecules are then placed onto a surface, in this case graphene (basically one layer of graphite at the atomic level), and images are taken using a special electron microscopy technique. e Tungsten 'labels' appear as bright dots. is allows us to measure the distance between each molecule at the Angstrom level, which is less than one nanometer! What we can deduce from these measurements are models of how the molecules are…actually forming long lines, stacking next to each other, which provided support for previous papers that claimed they aligned that way but did not have the technology to analyze the molecules at this resolution. e importance of this is not only demonstrating the ability to use this technique to measure molecules at this resolution, but also to aid in the development of porous materials, which can lead to things like filters." The most important thing for a teacher is to believe in their students -- that they can achieve what they set out to do with hard work, perseverance, and a belief that they can accomplish the goals that they set for them- selves. Megan Henry Grades 9–12 Science Teacher is page, left: In 2015, Megan Henry, Grades 9–12 Science Teacher and Advisor, meets with students in e Science Center; Opposite page: Daneil en route to the emergency room wearing his daily work uniform—scrubs. 3 4 T R E V O R D AY S C H O O L n S U M M E R 2 0 2 0 – 2 0 2 1

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