Chilean Exchange Students

by Zoey Lee ‘27

The seven Chilean exchange students from The Grange School have come and gone in a quick month! I asked Josefina, Agustina, Fernanda, Lucia, Kyle, Raimondo, and Alex to give a bit of a review of St. Mark’s, and here’s what came out of it: A few of their favorite classes included their language classes, specifically Latin and Chinese. Kyle and Raimundo also highlighted U.S. History as an exciting course. Many of them noticed a significant difference in the amount of homework between St. Mark’s and the Grange School, as St. Mark’s assigns much more homework and has longer class periods. They mentioned that having free periods and using technology in class was surprising as well.

In terms of sports, Fernanda, Josephina, and Agustina played JV Hockey. Although they came into the experience unable to skate, they quickly learned and even played in a few games! The team was very inclusive and welcomed the three with open arms, both on and off the ice. They were also on campus for a snowstorm, which was exciting for them because it very rarely snows in Santiago, Chile, where they live. Although they were a little disappointed that the snow was not packable to make a snowman, they still had fun in the snow and took advantage of the day off.

Outside of school, they got the full U.S. experience as they went to Target, visited Harvard Square, and even stayed in New York City before arriving at St. Mark’s. Overall, they all agreed to have had an exciting, fulfilling experience in the States, surrounded by kind, welcoming people and in an amazing community. We wish the seven students and two Grange School teachers safe travels back to Chile!

- Favorite class/ place on campus/ memory you’ve made

- Most surprising/shocking thing about America or this school

- Or just differences between Chile and America/ your school and St. Mark’s

- Just overall review of St. Mark’s lol

Fernanda’s response: 

•  Mr Davey's Latin I Class

•  Early meals

•  Boarding school experience has been very different from a day school

•  great teachers, nice people and overall an amazing school

Alex: 

• Latin I

• The amount of technology they use here

• The amount of hours of school people have compared to the grange

• It's been very nice

Lucia:

- Squash courts

- ⁠The food

- ⁠The longer hours of classes

- ⁠Really nice people and teachers, this trip is a truly recommended experience

Kyle:

•  US history

•  So much homework

•  Nice people, great sport culture

Josefina:

• chinese l 

• ⁠free periods between classes 

• ⁠the amount of homework we have here vs Chile 

• ⁠st marks has been a really fun experience with a lot of kind and fun people

Raimundo:

• History

• ⁠free periods

• ⁠the amount of people in a class 

• ⁠very nice experience and people and good quality of classes

RNA Interference Research: Sherry Mi ‘26

by Claire Cho ‘28 and Joy Kim ‘28

Sherry Mi ‘26 has just completed a research project about Cancer and Immunology. We asked her a series of questions surrounding her work: 

What was your research about?

“My research is about a specific topic in Cancer and Immunology research. It is about RNA interference, the most promising therapy in the field as of now. RNA interference is a technique that utilizes RNA fragments from the natural genome. The function of the system is to repair the damage to DNA and its genome caused by a mismatch. As of now, only a minority of patients actually receive benefits, so to address this disparity, I launched my experiment. 

There is a lot of function in this system, even more benefit that people with an intact genome.

Artificially Inhibiting mismatch repair could have improved patient conditions drastically.  This idea remains yet an experiential idea, criminally underexplored and often past treatments divulged into irrelevant treatments.Conducted in a lab experiment with cellulitis yielded significant results in disrupting this mismatch repair could be improved

1. How big of a immune response the cancer cells can illicit

2. The cancer cells fall more susceptible to the immune response

Basically, this is a paradox method that aims immunotherapy to become universal  

Why did you start your research?

I used to be a cardiac patient diagnosed with cazenda heart disease, and ever since then I’ve stayed attuned to news regarding heart diseases. I had to have surgery for this condition my freshman year. Moreover, I've had many experiences with medical spaces as several members of my family battled cancer - my grandfather had colorectal cancer. Once diagnosed with a verdict, the experience hit hard, and I started actively looking for sources. I began looking into news outlets, seeking better therapy options. 

Did you ever go back on your purpose, rethink your research… (have doubts) 

One moment? 

Spanned the summer of 2024—- a few days ago.

March 2025, collecting data, reading literature - unguided process, easy to get lost. 

Even though there was a specific topic in mind, there were amazing articles branching out to other topics (‘maze’ where she felt that she had to cover everything - internally chaotic)

Wondering the meaning of her research

Resolution: slowed down the reading process and tried to organize the things she read into more detailed logs

Opened google docs and jot down all the relevant information - filtering out the information she does not need

Padlet to organize all the literature - allows you to connect between subtopics

Challenges faced during your research?

Sometimes it feels like you are in total control. In reality, a lot of the cell handling is simply microscopic. You cannot see the results until the end of the experiment, and that creates a veil of uncertainty. One instance is handling an acid named the western blot. Identifying the presence of protein determines whether the experiment was successful. Only after ___ could the results be seen—and they initially turned out to be unsuccessful. While challenges occurred during such extended periods of hands-on lab work, it was fun to adjust and carry on. The process of hands-on lab work was satisfactory and provided the motivation to push on.

Advice for students interested in conducting similar research?

My main advice would be to keep your ears and eyes out in the world; that is, be open to what is happening in the world. That could be tuning into news outlets, or reading a little more. There are amazing books on diseases. __, ___, and ___ to name a few. The goal is to make a habit of reading, whether it be once a day or once a week. The next step is to ask good questions. Start with the ones that could clarify your knowledge, then something experimental. Immunology was a large field, so for me, the research process started slowly. I would say my biggest achievement is being able to ask so many good questions. Pursue clarity, challenge current framework, and identify problems for tackling.