Melissa Zagorski
Lake View High School
About
Melissa Zagorski teaches Physics at Lake View High School, just down the street from Wrigley Field. In previous years, she has taught Astronomy, Environmental Science, Algebra, Geometry and Algebra/Trigonometry. Born and raised in Chicago, Melissa attended John B. Murphy Elementary School and Whitney M. Young High School. Graduating from North Park University, she received her teaching degree and a Bachelor of Science in physics. As a lifelong Chicagoan, Melissa takes full advantage of the cultural experiences the city has to offer, spending her free time exploring the museums, zoos, festivals, gardens, and extensive bike paths. She can also be found at many of the city’s public lectures, often attending the Compton Lectures at the University of Chicago, the Data Science Nights at Northwestern and OutLoud at Argonne National Lab.
Over her career, Melissa has completed several summer Fellowship programs. At Northwestern University, she has constructed nanocircuits through lithography; and a few summers later developed a curriculum around nanostructure adhesion, similar to how Gecko feet grip walls, for the Material World Modules. At Rush Epilepsy Center, she worked on Subtraction Ictal SPECT Co-registered to MRI (SISCOM) and observed three open brain surgeries.
Melissa has greatly enjoyed all of her research experiences and was very excited when she was accepted to work at UIC Richard and Loan Hill Department of Bioengineering on Magnetic Resonance Elastography (MRE) with Dr. Royston and Dr. Klatt. MRE is a rapidly developing technology used to measure the elasticity of tissue which can be used to determine the level of disease advancement, like cancer and fibrosis. Partnered with a graduate student, she spent several weeks making different gelatin concentrations in test tubes, called “phantoms,” and then testing them in the new tabletop MRI at various frequencies. Melissa’s curriculum will focus on the technology and applications of MRI, and engineering a MRI model to measure samples with different objects using magnets and induction.