Ten LA seniors from our Upper School shared their research and findings on a variety of important topics in Capstone presentations last week in the Oakwood Room. This project, a requirement to graduate with the Global Scholars Program diploma, involves many components including a written paper, action research and a presentation in front of students and a panel of teachers.
The Capstone Research Seminar supported 10 young scholars through their first original research projects. That journey takes students through many sophisticated research techniques: they form research questions on issues of their choosing, they form their own definitions of key concepts based on the current knowledge in their fields, and they answer their questions with original data collected through interviews, observations, and primary source analyses. It’s real, high-quality scholarship akin to what their future professors do day-in and day-out.
“Our scholars’ projects demonstrate their eagerness to contribute to helping on a global scale. This year’s scholars chose to research public problems of the greatest importance: from the racialized tropes embedded in the UFC’s marketing campaigns to the ways medical practice and training reproduce racial stereotypes; to the obstacles facing police departments combatting sexual assault in Delhi; from the complexities of advocating for equality in sports to doing the same for governmental aid in the face of environmental disasters,” said Mr. Jason Murphy, Upper School history teacher and supervisor of the Capstone program.
Student presentations were organized thematically in three sessions: Race, Equity and the Power of Narrative, Trauma, Injustice and Systems of Service, and Seeing Invisible Impacts.
Below is a listing of this year’s Capstone scholars and their presentations:
Andrew Wolff ’23 – Double Fault: Black Professional Tennis Players at the Intersection of Race and Advocacy
Giselle Lee ’23 – The Inclusionary and Discriminatory Practices of Talent Identification in Swim
Chiupong Huang ’23 – All Part of the Script": How The UFC Advertises Race and Class Identity
Nandini Shah ’23 – Invisible Bruises: The Effect of Childhood Trauma on Social Interactions
Loveleen Sindhar ’23 – Brainwashed guinea pigs”: America’s healthcare system and the prevention of Black patients from receiving optimal care
Anna Lee ’23 – Covid Catastrophe: Adolescents' Social Media Use Causes Mental Health During and After the Pandemic to Decrease
Aastha Patel ’23 – She Was Asking for It: Stitching a Thread Between Rape Myths and Indian Justice Systems
Naischa Puri ’23 – Solfége or Stilettos?: The Experiences of Women in a Male-Dominated Creative World
David Flatau-Jones ’23 – The Car Conundrum: Examining Car-centered Suburbia and its Relationship to Personal Freedom in New Jersey
Aayushi Singh ’23 – The Government’s Game: A Cycle That Continues to Perpetuate Environmental Injustices and Poverty in Low-Income Non White Communities
“After five years of running the Capstone research program, this year’s Capstone scholarship highlights, for me, what our Upper School does so well. We apprentice young people to go out into the world and make lives better. This year’s scholars used authentic research techniques to learn how we all can contribute to improving the problems they studied. I couldn’t be more proud of our Capstone scholars’ quality work,” Mr. Murphy said.