One Pingry

The Middle School Rocket Club constructs model rockets from kits or with custom designs. If any problems happen during a launch, students problem solve and rebuild, as needed.

The 2021-22 Buttondowns performing the ensemble’s annual concert prior to Thanksgiving.

One Pingry

 Members of the Honor Board pose questions to Maud Peper Dahme (“DAH-mee”) during this fall’s John Hanly Lecture on Ethics and Morality. A survivor of the Holocaust and author of Chocolate: The Taste of Freedom: The Holocaust Memoir of a Hidden Dutch Child, Ms. Dahme shared the story of how strangers saved her family from extermination. Her overall message is, “Respect each other . . . We’re all human beings.”

Middle School’s PAAC (Pingry Athletics & Activities Council)

(left) A screenshot from one of PAAC’s broadcasts.  (right) The PAAC decorating the atrium board with scores, illustrations, and a “Quote of the Week” to generate school spirit. The quote here is from late track and field coach and Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman: “Victory is in having done your best. If you have done your best, you’ve won.”  The PAAC recording one of its broadcasts with headlines and highlights from Middle School athletics.

Budding Scientist and Regeneron Scholar

Katherine Xie ’22 is one of 300 high school seniors— out of more than 1,800 applicants internationally— to be named a Scholar in the Regeneron Science Talent Search 2022. The country’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors, it provides students with a national stage to present original research. Scholars are chosen based on their research skills, commitment to academics, innovative thinking, and promise as scientists.

Katherine spent last summer interning at Boston University, where she worked on an original research project in computational neuroscience. She built a computational model of an olfactory neural circuit to study how structural changes within the circuit impact its learning capacity. “My research findings further our understanding of olfactory learning, providing important clues to understanding the mechanisms underlying learning and memory. This can help us develop olfaction-inspired AI and better treatments of neurodegenerative disorders,” she says.

Pingry’s computer science classes (in the Middle and Upper Schools); math classes, including statistics; science classes ranging from biology to physics; and English classes all played a part in Katherine’s preparation. She is also a member of an Independent Research Team at Pingry that gave her knowledge of and hands-on experiences studying artificial neural networks.

“Studying neuroscience through a computational lens is a crucial component of the broader effort to decipher how different parts of the brain learn and process information, which, in turn, could also propel artificial intelligence to the next level of intelligence. I look forward to further exploring this fascinating field in the future.”

The Lower School Library participating in the National African American Read-In, with guest readers joining in person and virtually. Sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English, the goals of the event are to make literature a significant part of Black History Month and celebrate the works of African American authors. Pingry statistics: 32 classes participated; 30 readers; 40 books read to the students. Lower School Librarian Ann D’Innocenzo submitted to the council a list of the titles and authors, as well as these statistics, so that the Lower School can be included in the national tally.