NAHS Standouts

New Albany High School senior seminar finalists go above and beyond expectations

By Bre Offenberger

New Albany High School is known for its rigorous curriculum and challenging course load. However, it’s equally known for its talented and hardworking student body.

Each year, seniors at New Albany High School are required to take a senior capstone course, with one of the options being the senior seminar. This year was more difficult than ever with the added stresses of the pandemic and adapting to a constantly changing world, but the five finalists got through it with flying colors.

Gavin Fancher, Meghana Karthic, Katherine Meslow, Riley McNabb and Olivia Gittins each took vastly different routes to complete their senior seminar projects, but they all finished in the same way: with honorable distinctions and lifechanging experiences.

Fancher, Project of the Year

Fancher doubled the 80-hour minimum for the senior seminar through his work as an engineering intern with Form5 Prosthetics, a nonprofit started by NAHS alumnus Aaron Westbrook. Form5’s goal is to help those with limb differences by supplying bespoke prosthetics that are 3-D-printed, Fancher says.

In the first 70 to 80 hours of his internship, Fancher worked alongside Westbrook to learn the ins and outs of 3-D printers and then to help create protective face shields during the pandemic. He spent the latter half of his hours contributing to Form5’s CO-FAB (collaboration and fabrication) event.

During CO-FAB, the Form5 team works directly with people with limb differences to design and supply them with prostheses. Fancher worked with a young boy named Jack.

“He did not have his right hand or wrist,” Fancher says. “He wanted to ride his bike, which he was already quite good at, but he was getting a little pain on his nub when he was trying to ride it. We were able to deliver a prosthetic to him that he, I believe, still uses today.”

Fancher was shocked to learn he won project of the year for NAHS.

“It was kind of surreal,” Fancher says. “Winning project of the year, it was really nice because I did feel that I was a little bit rewarded for the hard work I put in, but at the same time, I was not expecting it, really. It was a pleasant surprise.”

Fancher loved Form5 so much that he worked for the company again this summer. Now, he has made his way to University of Wisconsin-Madison to study mechanical engineering.

Gavin Fancher

Karthic, Project of Excellence

Karthic virtually interned with the Air Force Research Laboratory at WrightPatterson Air Force Base where she worked under an aerospace engineer for six weeks. She dedicated most of her time to the NASA X-43, an unmanned, hypersonic aircraft.

“A hypersonic is an aircraft that can fly five times faster than the speed of sound,” Karthic says. “But the X-43 can actually travel 10 times faster than the speed of sound. So, it’s just really fast.”

She learned how to geometrically model the NASA X-43 as well as analyze it.

Karthic was especially grateful to receive the project of excellence award as she considered her peers’ projects to be as impressive as her own.

“I was very surprised, but I think I was glad that I was able to get that honor because I worked for several hours on that project,” Karthic says.

This fall, Karthic began her freshman year at Johns Hopkins University in its computer science program.

Meghana Karthic

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Katherine Meslow

For her project, Meslow was a summer intern for Dress for Success Columbus, a nonprofit that helps women become financially independent. Dress for Success assists women from all walks of life, including single mothers and those who were previously incarcerated, by offering interview preparations as well as other job readiness activities.

One of Meslow’s main tasks was to choose outfits for women to wear to their interviews and, eventually, their place of work. Dress for Success then gives their clients the outfits free of charge.

Meslow says she was appreciative of being picked as a finalist out of her roughly 400-person senior class.

“I was really honored because, what I did, I didn’t think a lot of people knew about,” she says. “It really impacted me, so being able to move to the next level almost and share my experience with a larger audience, I’m really grateful.”

Thanks to her time with Dress for Success, Meslow has developed an interest in working for a nonprofit after graduating from college. She is currently enrolled at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, to receive a degree in political science.

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Riley McNabb

Riley McNabb, finalist

Instead of working for an outside organization, McNabb decided to work on herself and run a half marathon.

Though she’s played volleyball and basketball her whole life, she says running was far from being her favorite aspect of it. She wanted to use the half marathon training to develop her athleticism and grit.

With help from her onsite advisor Eric Fruth and NAHS athletic trainer Todd Peterson, she learned about injury recovery and injury prevention. Her seminar work included papers on different types of sprinting and how a woman’s anatomy can affect the way she runs.

In the spring, McNabb celebrated receiving her COVID-19 vaccination by running a second half marathon that she routed to end at her grandparents’ home. McNabb says that trip was the first time she’d seen her grandparents since the pandemic began.

McNabb says she felt grateful to be a finalist for the senior seminar.

“It was honestly an amazing honor, and I’m so humbled by it,” McNabb says. “I was so proud watching the other projects. They did amazing things too.”

McNabb is attending University of South Carolina to study public health with a pre-medical track in the honors college.

Bre Offenberger is an editorial assistant. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.