Blueprinting Brilliance:
An Institute for Secondary and Undergraduate Student Research
Welcome to Throop Research Academy. Our Dean, Dr. Alex Tobias established the Academy to provide high quality research project mentoring for high school and college students. Dr. Alex has long believed that research is an important part of any education. The curriculum of most schools today is dominated by facts and concepts with very little reference to how that knowledge was acquired. The scientific method can only be truly appreciated when it has been practiced. Our motto, “Iuventus scientiam creans” is Latin for “Youth creating knowledge.” We are an online Academy based in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
What makes Throop special
Our Academy provides premiere research experiences at affordable prices through its people and programs. Dr. Alex serves as every student’s primary mentor. With a PhD in Chemical Engineering and Biology from Caltech that contributed to the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and 20 years of subsequent research experience in industry and government, Dr. Alex expertly and patiently assists every student with topic selection, carrying out their project, scientific writing, creating their figures and tables, presenting, and answering questions about their research. Most Throop researchers work on STEM projects, but some students’ research is centered in social sciences or humanities.
Our research mentoring is different
Highly personalized approach. We meet your student where they are and teach what they need to know to get started and work through their project. We can accommodate student-originated project ideas, provide students with a menu of topics from our idea bank, or brainstorm novel project topic ideas together.
Deep and broad research mentoring experience. Many corporate research mentoring programs hire graduate students or postdocs as "gig mentors" and pocket most of your tuition dollars for themselves. At Throop, you're hiring a highly accomplished and experienced researcher who will personally mentor your student. Dr. Alex is acutely aware of the constraints faced by his students in terms of resources, time, and background knowledge, and mentors his students with those constraints in mind.
Commitment to teaching and results. Many research programs are merely a series of meetings or lessons that students attend to earn a certificate. Throop's program provides concrete goals for competition and/or publication, a technical curriculum customized for each student, and active assistance, editing, and feedback on student deliverables to guide them toward their goals. Our objective with every student is not only for them to compete and/or publish, but to learn to think like a scientist and design experiments or tests to obtain reliable answers to their research questions. These skills are not taught in most schools, and will set your student up for success in STEM wherever they choose to study or work next.
Student Programs
All packages include a full year of mentoring and unlimited meetings with Dr. Alex.
Throop Research Fellows are high school students performing original research projects with the intention of presenting their work at science fairs, STEM competitions, conferences, and/or peer-reviewed journals that feature high school student research.
Throop Collegiate Research Fellows are undergraduate students or recent high school graduates performing original research projects with the intention of presenting their work at conferences, and/or peer-reviewed journals that feature undergraduate student research.
Throop Scholars are high school students seeking to explore a research topic, learn to read primary literature, and present their their work as a mini-review paper, blog, or podcast. This program is especially attractive to students interested in science or technology journalism.
Significance of the Name
“Throop Research Academy” pays tribute to Throop University, the original name of what became the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California. By honoring this now obscure piece of American science and technology history, we evoke the memory and ethos of a fledgling institute preparing to change the world through its devotion to learning by doing.
