Oral History Interview with Sarah Dubisson, Winner of the 2024 Dr. Gates Math and Physics Award for Jones High School

Yes, that’s what I love about the IB [International Baccalaureate] environment. It’s like you’re with kids who are like you. So you can like compete and get really messy. But at the same time you’re like supporting each other. Excerpt from an Oral History Interview with Sarah Dubisson, Winner of the 2024 Dr. Gates Math and Physics Award.

Sarah Dubisson, 2024 Winner of the Dr. Gates Math & Physics Award for Jones High School.
Sarah Dubisson is a 2024 graduate of Jones High School and aspires to be a theoretical physicist. She will be attending Florida A & M University this year in the Honors Program. As a student at Jones High School Sarah completed the International Baccalaureate Program, participated in A Gift for Music Program, and served others in the Soldiers to Scholars Community Program.

Mrs. Nicole Blackmon is the Jones High School 2024 Teacher of the Year and International Baccalaureate MYP and DP Coordinator, IB Theory of Knowledge Teacher. Mrs. Nicole Blackmon is a Florida native who grew up on the Space Coast. Mrs. Blackmon is a Lead Educator for the IB. She trains teachers and evaluates IB schools across the world. Currently, Mrs. Blackmon is the President of the Florida League of IB Schools.

Dr. Gates established the Dr. Sylvester J. Gates, Jr. (JHS ‘69) Math & Physics Award at Jones High to reward a male and female student each year for exemplary math and physics projects. The award is $1000 each, payable to the students to be used at their discretion. It is not a scholarship. The award is to incentivize more JHS students to pursue STEM careers. Dr. Gates is member of the National Academy of Sciences and recipient of the National Medal of Science. Gates holds the Clark Leadership Chair in Science and a joint appointment in the Department of Physics and the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. He is also a Distinguished University Professor and a University System of Maryland Regents Professor. Gates is well-known for his seminal work in supersymmetry, supergravity and string theory. He has made milestone discoveries in the mathematics of particle theory and the geometry of gravity. In addition to his research achievements, Gates also distinguishes himself as a powerful advocate for education and an ambassador for science around the world.

Listen as Orlando native Sarah Dubisson talks about her educational experiences growing up in the City Beautiful.

My name is Sarah Dubisson and I was born and raised in Orlando, Florida, but ethnically I’m from Haiti.

So you’re an Orlando native! That’s great. So this is where you grew up then, you said, ‘Born and raised‘?

Yes, my whole life.

This is Orlando Memory… and we have an Orlando native so that wonderful.

Do your parents live here or do they live in Haiti?

They live here. They were born in Haiti, but they moved here.

What do they do for a living?

My mom she currently works with old people. She takes care of them. She’s a senior caretaker. And my father, he works in computer science.

Great.

And you went to school here. Did you go to public school all your life or did you go to private school, would you tell us a little bit about your educational experience?

Yeah, I went to public school my entire life. In elementary school I went to Eagle’s Nest Elementary. And then I went to Carver Middle School where I did the IB Program, the IBMYP Program [International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program]. And then I moved on to Jones where I did the IBDP Program [International Baccalaureate Diploma Program]. And while at Jones, going back to Eagle’s Nest to do community service. It’s kind of like a pipeline. It’s kind of like jumping through them: Eagle’s Nest to Carver to Jones back to Eagle’s Nest. If that makes sense.

Would you tell us, you named two programs, would you tell us what those are? You gave us an acronym, could you tell us about those, please?

So in middle school, when I was in the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program which is like a baby IB. Like currently, not currently, I graduated. At Jones, International Baccalaureate Diploma Program is like a small class where you take these higher level courses, like college courses while you’re working towards a diploma. The Middle Years Program was like a smaller class than that, where you’re also taking higher level courses and it’s kind of like preparing us for like IBDP basically.

So in the middle school are you taking high school level courses or are you taking college level courses in that special program that you mentioned?

Yeah, we’re taking high school level courses. I think our sciences were like Physical Science and Earth Space Science. They’re honors classes. And math, we took Algebra I in the seventh grade and Geometry in the eighth grade. And I think the language kids they started taking high school Spanish. I took Art though which I kind of regret. I could have saved myself some stress in high school.

Well, it’s good to try different things, right.

Do you have to pay extra to take those higher level courses? Is there extra tuition or is that all public school?

I think it’s all public school. I don’t really know how the IB program works in general, but all I know is that at those two schools specifically, it was completely free.

Excellent.

And other than the art, did you enjoy it? What was your experience like? Were there favorite classes that you especially liked or topics?

Well, I loved art. There’s nothing about it that really actually helped me in high school or anything after that, but I’m glad for the memories I got. Like I remember my Art Teacher he was like a really – he was an interesting guy to say the least. Like he had a way of teaching. He would like chase kids around with a broom. Or like the way he taught was kind of funny where he would like criticize kind of harshly, but in a funny way. It kind of like made me better at art.

So he brought forth participation from the students?

Oh, yeah, definitely. All the students loved him.

And were there other classes that you took that you especially liked that you had a sense of achievement?

In middle school, yeah, I definitely loved my algebra and geometry classes. Like Ms. Anderson she was a real sweetheart. I remember she made us memorize the quadratic formula and to this day I still thank her for it. Because the amount of times that I use it, is actually crazy. I remember they picked a few of these students to take the SAT in the seventh grade, I think. And me and this kid used to like fight over who would get the better score. And I got like ten points higher than him and he just could not hear the end of it.

So it was competitive, but it was fun. It sounds like you were having fun, too.

Yes, that’s what I love about the IB environment. It’s like you’re with kids who are like you. So you can like compete and get really messy. But at the same time you’re like supporting each other.

It sounds like an excellent learning environment.

Yeah, it’s great.

Were you involved in extracurricular activities in high school or middle school?

Yeah, in elementary school I used to play the violin with A Gift for Music but the program, something happened I guess where I wasn’t able to continue it. So I couldn’t get my hands on other instruments until high school where for some reason I decided to play the cello. I remember they asked us, well what instrument do you want to play? Since I went through the first year of Music Theory, I opened my mouth I was supposed to say, violin, but I said, “Cello.” And I don’t regret it at all because I love the instrument. I could have picked anything else. And I also played with a Gift for Music again but in a Chamber Strings Orchestra.

Community Service

And like I said how I came back to Eagle’s Nest Elementary School to do community service, I remember I took a few kids from there over to A Gift for Music, too, so they could also learn music.

So what is A Gift for Music? Is that a club or is that an afterschool class?

It’s like a program. I think they do like afterschool programs. But I did their programs on Saturday where it’s like different levels of orchestra, like prelude, strings, or they’re like beginner classes. Etude, that’s when you can actually pick your own instrument, and like there’s Concert and there’s Chamber.

Was it held at school or was it held at a community center? Where was it? Where did you go to take the class?

The first time I did it like back in elementary school it was at a UCF building. And the second time in high school it was at Lake Highland Prep. I think it just depends on the location they pick.

So there are students from all over then?

Oh, yeah, all over.

So that’s really fun, you’re getting to meet other people, right?

Yeah.

That’s great.

So, how did you first get started in Physics?

I would say I would go back to my very first thoughts as a kid like I’ve always been like hardwired for math. Like anything I would think about, I have to relate it to math somehow. And then, it got to the point where I I got to school and everybody’s like, oh, wow, you’re good at math. You should go into engineering. I guess that’s like whenever it gets like them deciding the career paths that kids should take, they always go for like the higher paying jobs. They’re like, okay, you like math, so you go straight to the top – do engineering. And that’s something that I’ve been like hearing for my entire life even though I have no actual interest in engineering. It’s just like everybody says I should, and I can do math while doing it, so might as well.

NASA Project

But then I get to high school and I did this project with NASA where it’s like we were researching polymers to figure out ways to impede sound. And I decided then and there that I did not like engineering. Because like I was in a room with a bunch of kids that wanted to be engineers and like actual people who are studying engineering. And I decided that my brain is not wired for this at all. Like I remember they were like, think of materials that you can use that can block sound. And I was like, “What about Ooblick?” I realized right then and there that I like it when people look at me like I’m crazy, so I can prove to them that I’m not. Because like we were looking for material that are like dense enough to block off sound, but not completely dense where it like completely eradicates it.

Physics vs. Engineering

So I’m like, “We don’t really know the properties of non-Newtonian fluids so why don’t we experience with that?” And they kind of just looked at me like, huh? And they’re like, “It’s not really a bad idea, but that’s not what we’re doing here.” And that made me realize then and there, like I want to work with theory. I want to get theoretical with the things I do. That’s when I decided then and there that I want to go to college to study physics instead of engineering.

And are you thinking of theoretical physics?

Oh, yeah, of course.

Which is really exciting, isn’t it?

Oh, yeah, it’s beyond exciting.

Is there a certain discovery or invention or even material that you really especially like?

It’s not really materials and inventions, because I don’t really like anything in the material world. Like everything that I deal with, I deal with in my brain. It’s more like concepts. Like something that I really take an interest in, is like randomness, chaos theory. Like I remember I got into this argument with my friend the other day, about whether true randomness is like conceptually attainable. And it’s like us just going back and forth, for like a whole hour about what we think is correct or not. That’s like one of the things I actually would like to study in college: chaos theory…

Do you have a science role model, whether a teacher or someone who has achieved something that you think, wow, that was really interesting!

I’ve actually had a few in my life. Like I said how back in middle school I really loved my Algebra and Geometry teacher, Ms. Anderson was definitely one of them. Like the one that forced me to learn the quadratic formula. And in high school like Mr. Strigel, the kids do not like him… but I think that the way he used to think about math was actually really interesting to me. Like anytime I would come to him with a question, he would not answer the question. He would actually leave me with more questions than I had before. And it made me realize that’s why I love math to begin with.

Dr. Gates

Dr. Gates is definitely one of them. Because if you Google his name you will see Education: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jones High School. I found something like that really powerful. Because, when I told my family that I wanted to go study Math and Physics, for one, they’re just like, “Is that really financially sustainable?” And after that, it’s like they see that I actually have the potential for it. And they are already proud of me.

And I found something like that really important. Where it’s like, my family they already feel proud of me. Where I don’t have to worry about whether I can do it because they know I can do it. And to the point where, like once I go on, say I do something great, I can go back and say that, yes, I’m from Orlando, Florida, but my origins are also from Haiti.

And, yes, I went to Jones High School.

Jones High School, of course.

And public school and this is what I’ve achieved. And you know, Dr. Gates also likes to be known as the Parramore Physicist. And I guess you know that he just received an honorary degree from Harvard in May in addition to his many other honorary degrees.

Now, I understand, you’re planning on attending, well, I don’t know if you’ve made that decision yet. Are you thinking of attending Florida A&M University or University of Central Florida?

Yeah, I was kind of split between Florida A & M and UCF for a while. Because like UCF is closer, and of course because it’s closer, it’s cheaper. But it’s like a really big environment and that’s not something I think I can do, which is why I want to go to Florida A & M for their Honors Program. Where I can like deal with a small class of people kind of like IB 2.0, or in this case 3.0 since I did IB in middle school.

So you’ve made that decision?

Yeah.

Well, congratulations that’s wonderful!

Thank you.

And is there, you talked about randomness, I was going to ask is there a future project or company or organization that you’re thinking I’d really like to navigate towards that. Do you have that in mind?

Companies, I don’t really think about that. More like, I just want to be in a space where I can do research. Where I can just set up at a white board all day and just scribble things down like a mad scientist. But as far as ideas go, they kind of just come to me. I sometimes like revisit old ideas I’ve had. Like, my math and physics which I submitted to Dr. Gates, I might like revisit that and like expand on it, or look at it from a different aspect.

Would you tell us about that? You did physics research exploring a color’s wavelength relative to the intensity. So could you tell us about that project?

I remember that was not the project I originally wanted to do, but my physics teacher, he was like, “Girl, at this point, you’re going to graduate. So like, try this one.” He gave me like a procedure that I could try. And I remember thinking, mmm, this is boring. It’s too easy. So I delved a little bit more into it where I didn’t just establish a correlation between wavelength and intensity, I also created a model out of it that predicts the intensities of different wavelengths. But I felt like I could have done a little bit more for that one.

So tell us about the model you created.

So we had three lasers of three different colors and we measured the intensities of each laser. And we already had the wavelengths from like the lasers themselves. And then like using that I kind of like – the relationship was supposed to be exponential. But because we only had three lasers, it was kind of hard to define that. So I kind of like took the space between each laser and I kind of like averaged them out to create a line of best fit. And I used that to like roughly estimate what the wavelengths would be of like different colors.

And so, this was a written essay that you did or was it a presentation that you gave for class?

It was my IB physics internal assessment so it was kind of like a research paper.

And then you also did a math research project exploring the relationship between tropospheric pressure and temperature, is that right?

Yeah, now that one was rough. Like I was going through all stages of grief while doing that one. Because I remember that’s not the one I originally wanted to do. Like, I think I got a little to ahead of myself. Okay, so like a few months ago, we started our astrophysics unit in physics where we learned about the stellar parallax method which is basically using the distance between the sun and the earth which is one astronomical unit to determine the distance between the sun and another body outside of our solar system. And he kind of like briefly went through it. He kind of like flew through it because we kind of had a lot of stuff to go over. And I feel like I was kind of stuck on it.

Hypothetical Body

I was like okay, if we can use the distance between the earth and the sun to determine the distance between the sun and another body, then can we use a hypothetical body like a body that we can just make up to like the distance between that and the sun to determine the actual distance between the sun and the earth. So it’s kind of like the stellar paradox method, but I kind of like reversed it. Because it was like highly theoretical, like I’ve never seen anybody do that before, I did not have enough resources to do it. For one thing, it had way too many unknown variables. I was like stressed beyond my mind because I need to do this to graduate and like I didn’t even know if the project is cohesive enough. I think from that came the idea of like – oh, yeah, not to mention there’s kind of like a bunch of variables that I wasn’t really considering. And I think from that came the idea of like the barometric pressure and the atmospheric temperature thing. Because I was like okay, that’s an interesting research project right there. I can look into that one. I think that’s the way I think a lot. Like I have one research project, and I kind of like stray from that one. I stray from that one. Because I keep on thinking about different research projects. I’m definitely going to revisit the first one after I figure out what to do with it.

Would you clarify, the one that you did do, that’s completed, would you just clarify the one that you did do was?

…the relationship between barometric pressure and atmospheric temperature. I think I used like the barometric pressure formula which is like a physics formula. And then I used the atmospheric temperature formula which is just like, temperature with respect to altitude. And then like I used those formulas with respect to the U.S. Standard Atmosphere which is like a generalized, ideal version of what sea level is. And then I kind of like used those and I combined the formulas to create like a relationship between pressure and temperature.

So you were pleased with your final project, right?

Yeah, I feel like there was more I could have done. I remember that I wanted to graph the relationship between pressure, temperature, and altitude three dimensionally, but I didn’t have enough resources for that. So it was like okay. I got to work with what I got.

So maybe another time.

Maybe another time, yeah.

You said that you’re considering majoring in theoretical physics, is that decided?

I mean theoretical physics isn’t really a major yet. I definitely want to study that, but I’m kind of split between physics and math right now.

So you might do both which is what some people do.

I might do both, yeah. I looked at the prerequisites. I think it’s like the difference between them is I like I have to take a differential equations class, and a programming class instead of like physics. The thing is I would have taken differential equations either way, even if it wasn’t a prerequisite. So it’s like might as well.

And you’ll probably enjoy that, too.

Oh, definitely.

Have you done other things outside of school? I know you do music. What do you do for fun?

I’ve kind of like stuck to these extracurriculars for the longest time. Like when I worked with Soldiers to Scholars which is like the one that works with Eagles Nest, I liked playing the cello. And aside from that, my individual interests includes, thrifting. I thrift a lot as you can tell from like the made up earrings. And, I guess, I read a lot. Like I always wondered what I do for fun. It seems like most of my time I spend like locked in a dark bedroom just like reading.

And did you say, Soldiers to Scholars Program?

Yeah.

Have you enjoyed that?

Yeah, I grew up with them They’re like a family.

That’s great. Alzo Reddick started that program. We have his interview as well.

What do you enjoy most about living in Orlando?

For one, I love the walkability. Like don’t ask me why, but I refuse to drive. I like walking everywhere. I’d say the bus system is kind of inefficient, but I like how its accessible. So like if I want to go somewhere on the other side of the city, I can just go on transit, just find the route and just go.

That’s great to hear. I’m sure our leaders will be happy to hear that, our transportation planners and government leaders. That’s wonderful.

Well, thank you very much for speaking with us today. Many congratulations to you on receiving the Dr. Gates Math and Physics Award for 2024. We look forward to hearing more about your accomplishments in the future and we wish you the very best.

Thank you.

Interview: Sarah Dubisson

Interviewer:  Jane Tracy

Date: June 6, 2024

Place: Jones High School