Mark Wilcox '09 founds MERIT to help minority students interested in the sciences

"Where I come from, you don't see too many kids say, 'I want to be a scientist,'" Day said.

t was students such as Day who inspired two city teachers to create MERIT, a program that provides the intensive academic support and mentoring that could enable them to become scientists.Day, 18, is getting hands-on experience at a biophysics laboratory at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine after completing his first year at the Community College of Baltimore County.

Mark Wilcox and Tyler Mains, who came to Baltimore in 2009 as Teach for America teachers, have helped nearly two dozen low-income students from under-represented minority groups begin to compete with students from more-privileged backgrounds.

Since starting MERIT, Wilcox and Mains have completed their two-year Teach for America commitments and are studying medicine at Hopkins.

"If we are working to solve health issues facing low-income communities, it would be wonderful to have someone from one of those communities," Wilcox said.