As a freshman at Brown University this fall Erica Alexander has a big advantage over the other medical education students—the years she spent as a high school intern in the labs of James Potter, Ph.D., professor and chairman of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology at the Miller School.

“I started working with Dr. -Potter the summer after my freshman year at Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High, and it was one of the most educational and interesting experiences I was able to participate in during high school,” says Alexander. “Dr. Potter always treats students as real scientists, allowing us to participate in lab meetings and asking us questions about our experiments.”

It’s that sentiment that earned Potter the 2007 Honors and Executive Internship Program Mentor of the Year Award from Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Over the past 23 years Potter has mentored more than 100 high school interns. Because of his efforts, many of them have gone on to win prestigious awards in the national Westinghouse and Intel science talent search competitions.

The internship program is run by the school district’s Office of Community Services, and it gives honors and gifted students a chance to try out a profession so they can make a more informed decision about their life’s work. Each year more than 800 students from Miami-Dade public and private schools work with close to 500 mentors in such fields as the life sciences, law, accounting, and architecture.

Potter says he’s committed to the program because of mentors he had as a young scientist. “So few Americans today want to go into science, and I feel if you get to them early and get them interested, there’s a much better chance they’ll choose science as a career,” says Potter. “I cannot tell you how many times I go to a scientific convention and someone says, ‘Hey Dr. Potter, remember me? I worked in your lab in high school.’ It is just a great feeling knowing you helped that person along their career path.”