Karabots Junior Fellows Program
Now Recruiting 9th Graders!
We are now recruiting 24 rising 10th graders for a two-week introduction to various healthcare professions through stimulating and enjoyable presentations centered on the topic of Body Modification: Past and Present. Find out more about a range of healthcare professions while discovering the history and culture of body modification as well as an exploration of present day body modification. This summer program runs from August 5th to 16th, 2013 and represents the initial recruitment for a 3-year youth program. At the end of this two-week summer program, students will be selected to participate in the year-round program. Apply now.
Deadline extended to April 30th.
Penn's SUMR Scholars Meet the Karabots
In the first joint activity of Penn’s Summer Undergraduate Minority Research (SUMR) program and the Karabots Junior Fellows program, students spent an afternoon together reviewing and discussing the Mütter Museum exhibits curated by the Karabots group. Both programs are academic pipeline efforts designed to engage students from underrepresented minorities in healthcare-related studies and career choices. Read more.
Skin Shots
Since January 2012, the topic of study for the Karabots Junior Fellows has been Skin. The goal of this unit is for the students to learn about the fascination, reverence, repulsion and rejection of “types” of skin. The students had classes on the anatomy of skin, the anthropology and “culture” of skin, body modifications to the skin (tattoos, piercings, branding, 
lightening, makeup, skin diseases and disorders) and the skin aging processes. The segment about rejection encouraged the students to reflect upon and share ways that they think people are rejected and/or reject on the basis of skin (race, color, age, modifications, disease, disorders, etc.), and the feelings that are associated with these rejections. Skin Shots: Repulsion Reverence Rejection is a culminating exhibit of photographs of skin and accompanying prose created together with guest curator Arne Svenson.
Guest speakers for the Skin curriculum included James Hayden (Wistar Institute), Caroline Koblenzer (University of Pennsylvania), and Nina Jablonski (Penn State University).
About the Karabots Junior Fellows Program
The Karabots Junior Fellows Program aims to use the resources of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia to provide practical assistance, mentoring, and academic and social support to a select group of Philadelphia high school students from communities under-represented in current healthcare professions. This three-year program is designed to facilitate their continuation into post-secondary education required for a career in healthcare. The Karabots Junior Fellows Program was officially launched on June 1, 2009 when Nick and Athena Karabots of The Karabots Foundation generously donated the first year's funding for the program. For more information about the Karabots Program, read the following articles from The Philadelphia Inquirer:
- Philanthropists Help High Schoolers Find Success from June 5, 2012
- A Youthful Remedy from August 24, 2010
General inquiries and those interested in becoming a mentor to the program can email us at youthprograms@collegeofphysicians.org.
Read about Splendid Skulls, a special exhibition at the Mütter Museum curated by the Karabots Junior Fellows!
Follow Karabots on Twitter
Photo Credit: Mark Garvin at the PMA
Najee with Athena & Nicholas Karabots
Amie Zimmerman from Arcadia University conducting a drawing workshop