One of the purposes of Los Angeles Educational Partnership (LAEP)'s Partners program is to overcome students' stereotypes of scientists. The principle is that, if one thinks that scientists are all wild-haired old men, it's difficult to envision oneself doing science, let alone becoming a scientist--especially if one is a young African-American girl or a member of another underrepresented minority.

What the Partners Program did not understand was how much my own stereotype of a scientist needed revision. When Partners suggested a match for me with a chemist, I envisioned someone well-meaning, but boring and out of touch. This was to be my second partner; my first partner had moved out of the L.A. area.

I felt a little ridiculous requesting someone in a different field, considering that LAEP had spent over a year looking for anyone at all who would be willing to go to an inner-city school. After eleven years of teaching in South Central, I was accustomed to those last-minute cancellations of visitors, which seemed to coincide with the moment they looked at their Thomas Guide to find out in which part of the city the school was located. (Did they think that George Washington Carver Junior High School would be in Granada Hills?)

Nonetheless, despite my long wait for a second partner, I asked if I might be matched with an engineer instead. I had learned through my earlier partnership with an engineer that not all engineers resembled my idea of chemists. To his credit, that engineer partner was neither boring nor out of touch, and was willing to return to my school despite the fact that his first visit to my school coincided with the evening of the announcement of the first Rodney King verdict.

Instead of the chemist, the program found me a design engineer of mission and launch vehicles from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), whose job title alone would be enough to interest my students. When Stacey Weinstein arrived to speak to my physics class about the Pluto project that she had worked on, she was definitely not my nor my students' idea of a typical engineer.

The boys referred to her as "La Muchacha" until I gently reminded them that at 28, despite her youthful appearance, she was closer in age to their mothers. It was my girls, however, who found her energy, enthusiasm, and gender most approachable. Since then, she has helped my class build mousetrap vehicles, arranged a field trip for us to JPL, and brought liquid nitrogen to make some demonstrations. Beginning this summer, we hope to use LEGOs to build a rover. At this rate, my partner might eventually break down my stereotype of scientists in general--even of chemists.