Feedback Loop

Middle schoolers in central Washington benefit from a science mentorship and college pathway program created by Husky alums.

On a sunny spring day, 35 middle-schoolers pack into a conference room on the fifth floor of Schmitz Hall. Some wear black gloves to handle specimens from a sheep’s brain. Others lob paper airlines into the hallway to learn about aerodynamics. A third group raptly listens to Mickey Ruiz, a UW doctoral student in pharmacology, explain her research on targeted depression medicines.

Person with curly hair holding a micropipette — Ruiz was named to the 2025 Husky 100 in recognition of making the most of her time at the UW.

This mini science symposium is part of the group’s campus visit from Toppenish in central Washington. It began with a visit to the UW Planetarium, included an admissions presentation and culminated with a visit to Husky Stadium. All these middle schoolers participate in FEEDBACK, a mentorship program that Ruiz, ’22, co-founded as a Husky undergraduate with four friends, designed to introduce them to both science and college.

And it’s exactly the kind of program Ruiz, who was named to the Husky 100 in 2025, wishes she had had growing up in Toppenish.

Although she excelled in academics and graduated as valedictorian of her high school, Ruiz often felt like she was catching up in other ways as an undergrad studying physiology. “As first-generation students, the UW is super hard — and nothing prepares you,” recalls Ruiz, who graduated from the UW and is now a third-year Ph.D. student. “For many of us, it’s our first time knowing what it means to get a Ph.D. or what it means to do science.”

Woman with curly hair presents to a group of students with a poster in the background.

Ruiz shares findings from her research on developing more targeted medicines to a group of middle schoolers.

Three people look at a piece of sheep's brain

Current Huskies engage students in hands-on activities like learning about the different parts of a sheep's brain.

One night, while studying for a biology exam, she and her friends wondered out loud how they could have been better prepared for college — imagining an outreach program that would have sparked their curiosity and got them thinking about college. They turned that dream into reality with FEEDBACK (Fostering Educational Excitement Designed for Bold and Academically Curious Kids), which began with just seven students in Toppenish.

Today, the program has evolved over the last five years to serve more than 100 students. Typically, in the Fall, Ruiz and her team recruit Husky undergraduates and graduate students to serve as mentors, then match them up with interested school-age students in Toppenish. Over ten weeks in the winter, mentors and participants work together over Zoom to come up with a basic research project to do from scratch — ranging from using basic coding to create a video game to investigating how your drink of choice impacts sleep.

They walk through the process, from hypothesis to data collection to analysis, all of which gets presented at a celebratory research symposium. For Ruiz, that’s the moment she sees all the hard work pay off as excited students present their findings to a crowd of proud family and friends.

Closeup of hands folding a paper airplane

The program makes science fun and accessible through activities like making paper airplanes.

Person standing in front of stars and a crowd of people

The middle-school group enjoys a dazzling visual tour of the solar system at the UW Planetarium.

“They’re always going to remember that they can envision themselves at this huge University.”

Mickey Ruiz, ’22FEEDBACK co-founder and doctoral student

As a FEEDBACK mentor, Yahir Gonzalez, ’25, says he works to get to know his mentees and their interests, whether it’s food or fashion, so he can get them excited about the topics they want to research. “I never go in assuming the students love science or STEM,” says Gonzalez, adding that tying science topics to their interests helps them “find a little bit of science in their everyday lives.”

The goal of FEEDBACK is also to inspire students to think about college and see themselves pursuing higher education. That’s partly why those middle schoolers woke up before sunrise to make the trip over the Cascades and spend the day on the Seattle campus. “They’re always going to remember that they can envision themselves at this huge University,” Ruiz says. “There are people in these spaces that look like them and they can be in this space, too.”