Science Research Program Soars on Wings of Angel Donors

The year was 2010 when physics teacher Richard Shapiro and alumna Julia Ye, then an M.D.-Ph.D. student at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), created the Lowell Science Research Program (LSRP) to introduce Lowell students to scientific research through after school lectures and hands-on activities. The goal was to have a handful of those students gain summer placements in UCSF research labs alongside graduate students.

However, as Richard and Julia soon realized, many Lowell students were unable to participate in the summer research lab component of the program due to their need to find paid summer jobs to help support their families or save money for college.

And then the angels arrived in the form of an inquisitive Lowell parent and her Lowell alum husband. Having spent time learning about the needs of classroom teachers during their son’s time in middle school and then at Lowell, they got to know Mr. Shapiro and were impressed with his vision for the LSRP. And given the husband’s background in the medical information field of the pharmaceutical industry, they immediately grasped the importance of the LSRP and provided initial funding for student stipends for the summer internships.

Thanks to the ongoing philanthropy of these real-life angels, now supplemented with funding from the Lowell Alumni Association and under the leadership of biology teacher Alena Killpack, the LSRP serves more than 300 students each semester and places as many as a dozen or more students in summer research labs annually. To date, 98 students have received summer stipends totaling more than $150,000. (You’ll see some of those students pictured inside.) We are so appreciative of these generous donors and all of the angels in the Lowell community who help make dreams come true for Lowell students!