Snigtha Mohanraj has registered her first patent.
A Werth Industry Academic Fellow at Southern, she won the Youth Innovation and Leadership Award from the Connecticut Technology Council at its recent Women of Innovation celebration.
Yet Mohanraj is still a high school senior, attending the Engineering and Science University Magnet School, a New Haven public school located in West Haven.
She, along with Southern senior Paula-Marie Simpson, a finalist for Women in Innovation’s Collegian Innovation and Leadership Award and a BioPath Innovation Fellow, are two examples of Southern’s efforts to promote women in STEM fields through its SCSU Innovation Hub, known as the i-HUB.
“I’ve conducted a lot of independent research regarding water contamination removal,” Mohanraj said. “And then I’ve also done some volunteering and community work to try to make STEM research more accessible to New Haven youth, just because a lot of students in New Haven don’t really do anything research related, especially because we don’t have research programs at our schools.”
Mohanraj’s independent research began when she was in seventh grade. “It’s all been about targeting different contaminants found in our water,” she said. “Particularly, I’ve been interested in the sense that water contamination is also an issue of social justice.”
That’s because rural and low-income communities may lack access to treated water. Her patent, US 11,931,717 B2, focuses on removing microplastics and oil from water using natural materials.
Mohanraj said she began focusing on microplastics before many people were aware of how ubiquitous they have become. “Now, a lot more people know. But [I’m] also working on oil, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, all of those things that we can also find in our water,” she said.
“I’ve seen her growth since she first contacted us to participate to now, someone who is just pretty amazing, and has actually herself been a mentor to other students,” said Physics Professor Christine Broadbridge, executive director of Research and Innovation, and director of the Connecticut State College and Universities Center for Nanotechnology, Werth Fellowship, and SCSU i-HUB, which is based at Southern and offers the Werth fellowships.
“And then likewise for Paula-Marie, the growth has been amazing, to see her significant contributions to research and innovation,” she said.
“The level of research conducted by both students is notable, it’s … important for folks to know that high quality and innovative research happens at Southern,” Broadbridge said. “It’s activity that graduate students do at Yale, UConn, but we’ve got undergraduates and even high school students engaged in cutting-edge research inspired by real-world problems with societal impacts.”
More women, as well as persons of color, have been entering STEM fields in recent years, Broadbridge said. In the past four years, more than 175 SCSU i-HUB students have interned or been hired at more than 50 STEM companies. Of these, 38% identify as a person of color and 66% as female.
Nationally, 18% of women worked in STEM fields in 2021, up 31% in 10 years to 12.9 million, according to the National Science Foundation.
“My personal opinion is that I see that we’re making some headway, particularly in life science industries, in health care, but I think we have a long way to go in the physical sciences and engineering, in areas of technology like computer science and quantum,” Broadbridge said.
“And we also have a long way to go in areas around innovation and entrepreneurship where there aren’t enough women that have the ability to participate and be those individuals that are heading a startup company or are those that have the ability to move up into higher ranks in industry,” she said.
Mohanraj plans to broaden her focus to be the kind of innovator Broadbridge wants to see.
“Right now, I plan to study environmental science and hopefully political science as well,” she said. “I’ve been kind of interested in the intersection between STEM and government.”
While she has been focusing on science since seventh grade, Mohanraj has been taking more civics courses.
“I’ve always been geared more towards the science and technology part of my education,” she said. “And then this year I learned about the absence of science being used in government. And then I thought, that’s a really good focus point. How can we use science and government to actually aid effective policy? So I’ve done a lot of climate advocacy work within New Haven.”
Simpson is a Bridgeport resident and senior who is majoring in chemistry in a five-year master’s program at Southern.
Her research is focused on THC, the main psychoactive chemical in cannabis, and “its ability to treat age-induced neuro-degenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s,” she said. “And it’s been a really incredible journey, and being able to be a part of this research project.”
In a past job as a certified nursing assistant, “I was working in memory care with patients that are dealing with some of these illnesses,” she said.
Her work focuses on inhibiting an enzyme that breaks down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is essential in regulating bodily functions, such as muscle contractions, and memory.
“And what we found so far,” she said, “is that THC has been helpful in inhibiting that enzyme, essentially slowing down that breaking-down process of the acetylcholine.”
Simpson wants “to encourage more women and girls to pursue STEM careers [and] STEM education in that it will empower them to be innovative and provide access to many career options,” she said. She hopes to go into manufacturing “and to continue to conduct pharmaceutical research on novel therapeutics.”
Derek Faulkner is special projects coordinator at the i-HUB, which oversees the grants that pay for the students’ internships. The internships’ purpose “is to offer students … industry-relevant research experience,” he said. “We’re trying to launch students into this success. We’re trying to be a stepping stone, a resource for students.”
To hear more from Christine Broadbridge and Snigtha Mohanraj on the importance of mentoring girls and women in STEM fields, watch an interview with them on WTNH: “Women of Innovation event next Tuesday to honor women in STEM” (WTNH, Oct. 14, 2024)
