1 . A project called “I Am A Scientist” is giving middle and high school students the opportunity to interact with modern-day researchers. Below are stories from some of the scientists who are involved in the program.

“I have a black belt in Taekwondo (跆拳道). I am driven by a deep desire to help others. I believe that all people have a fundamental right to health care.”

Her work: During the Zika epidemic, Al-Alusi met with the communities that had been hardest hit by the virus, using data and mathematical models to keep them safe and healthy.

Background: Al-Alusi was born in California but her parents emigrated from Iraq. This experience provided her with an understanding of the health needs of the immigrant community.

“I’m a huge sports fan. I’ve traveled to more than 40 countries. I’m a licensed scuba diver but a terrible swimmer. I hated science in high school.”

His work: Amamoto studies the tiny but amazing brains of animals that have a superpower — the ability to regenerate. He learns what factors help these special brains regrow, so that we can try to treat diseases like Parkinson’s.

Background: Amamoto lived in Japan until the age of eight, when his family moved to Chicago. He had to overcome major language barriers which saw him shift between speaking English at school and Japanese at home.

“I once competed in a robot competition. I love Beyonce. I love cooking. I’m a doctor who studies ways to improve women’s health.”

Her work: Connor is a doctor at a hospital in Boston where she studies cancer cells in a lab using microscopes and computers, but she also works directly with patients who are undergoing tests for new cancer treatments.

Background: Growing up in Florida, Connor was a serious kid who stressed about the little things. She was into her schoolwork and loved to put on plays with her friends in which she would organize the whole thing and assign everyone a role.

Liu Yongtan,     1    (know) as a pioneer in China’s high-speed rail industry, graduated     2    Southwest Jiaotong University in 1955. Then he worked     3    a technician on the Chengdu-Kunming Railway,     4    he gained valuable experience in railway engineering.

In 1984, Liu Yongtan joined in China’s first high-speed rail project the Beijing-Shanghai Railway. At the time, many engineers believed that it was    5    (possible) to build such a railway in China. Despite these challenges, Liu Yongtan and his team devoted all their life to    6    (develop) one of the most advanced high-speed rail systems    7     (global).

Thanks to Liu Yongtan’s leadership, China’s high-speed rail network     8    (grow) rapidly over the years. One of Liu Yongtan’s most significant     9    (contribute) was the “reinforced concrete continuous beam bridge” technology used in the construction of high-speed rail lines. His achievements have not only benefited China     10    have inspired engineers around the world.

5 . Women Who Changed Science Forever

Ellen Ochoa (May 10, 1958–)

Ellen Ochoa is an American engineer and retired astronaut. Born in Los Angeles, California, Ochoa was the first Latina woman to fly in space as part of the crew of the shuttle Discovery in 1993. In 1990, Ochoa was selected to astronaut candidacy as part of Group 13, a group of twenty-three NASA astronauts, and became an astronaut a year later. Her first spaceflight was aboard Discovery as a mission specialist and lasted nine days, in which the five-person crew conducted scientific experiments and deployed a research satellite to study the solar corona.

Mamie Phipps Clark (April 18, 1917–August 11, 1983)

Mamie Phipps Clark was an American social psychologist, who specialized in child development in Black children. Born in Arkansas, Clark drew on her early experiences as a black child in the segregated (种族隔离) American South to help children growing up with the same inequalities. She initiated the famous Doll Test, which showed that Black children in segregated schools were more likely to prefer dolls with white complexions and yellow hair while discarding the brown dolls with black hair and assigning negative traits to them. Her husband, Kenneth, used their research to argue for school integration in the 1954 Supreme Court Case Brown v. Board of Education. This was the first time that social science was used in a Supreme Court case.

Katsuko Saruhashi (March 22, 1920–September 29, 2007)

Geochemist Katsuko Saruhashi was born in Tokyo on 22 March,1920. She developed Saruhashi’s Table, a method for measuring CO₂ using pH, temperature, and chlorinity, which has become a global standard. Saruhashi broke new ground in her study of ocean-borne nuclear contamination following the nuclear weapons test the United States undertook on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Saruhashi’s research played an important role in limiting nuclear proliferation (扩散) around the world, thanks to the signing of the 1963 treaty.

World leaders, representatives and experts have been mourning (悼念) the death of Chinese scientist Yuan Longping,     1     academician (院士) with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, whose lifelong research in high-yield rice     2    (variety) helps feed people around the world.     3     (fortunate), he passed away at 91 years old due to illness. His passing is a great loss to humanity and the Chinese people feel     4    (depress).

Born in Beijing in 1930, Dr. Yuan graduated from Southwest Agricultural College in 1953. Finding ways to grow more rice     5    (be) his life goal by the end of the day he died.     6    , his spirit with his mission to end hunger lives on.

Yuan succeeded in increasing the world’s first high-yield hybrid rice strain in 1973 and has helped China become a great wonder — feeding nearly one-fifth of the world's population with     7    (little) than 9 percent of the world’s total land. Spending money on himself or     8    (lead) a comfortable life means very little to him. He believes     9     a person with too much money has more rather than fewer troubles, so he gives millions of yuan to equip others for their research in agriculture. Without his contribution, more people would have suffered     10    hunger in the world.