Real research,
started in
middle school.
Passionate Research LLC · Cohort 2026
- Mentors
- TJHSST + top-10 universities
- Cohort
- Rolling — join any month!
- First call
- Free · 60 minutes
- Students mentored
- 100+
- Students per mentor
- 3–5
- Grades
- 4th–9th
Students mentored counts Next in Research and private tutoring together. Passionate Research LLC is independent of and separate from Next in Research.
Whether or not you ever pay us. No card, no pitch deck.
A rolling mentorship cohort where your child builds one real research project across the school year. They work with high school students admitted to TJ, AET, and AOS and from Top 10 universities — mentors a few years ahead of them on the exact path.
We prepare students to submit. We don’t promise outcomes.
Competitions we help students prepare for
What this cohort prepares them to enter
Every one of these is preparation and an entry, not a result. What happens after they submit is not ours to promise.
A research paper they submit themselves
Mentors will guide students from their first question to the finished draft, but students will write and own the work they produce themselves.
Both plans
The science fair pathway
Regional, state, and Thermo Fisher pathway, including the SRC and IRB approval steps that most participants discover too late.
Junior Scientist
A second competition of their choosing
Chosen by the student and family, then worked backwards from its entry date.
Junior Scientist
Reaching real researchers
Cold email templates and the strategies behind them, so a middle schooler can write a short, specific email to a high schooler or university lab and know what to ask for.
Both plans
Why Dev built this
I went to middle school in Loudoun County, and while my classes taught me STEM extremely well, I didn’t know how to find enrichment outside of the classroom. I didn’t lack ambition — I just never knew research was a thing a kid my age could do.
So I founded Next in Research, a free program to fix that for other middle schoolers — pairing a qualified TJHSST mentor with two or three students and letting them research whatever they actually cared about. Sometimes that is a straight science topic, and often it is a mix of video games, baking, and music.
PassionProject has the same goal, carried through the school year, with a promise of quality and structure. It exists so a mentor can hold more students without giving any of them less, and so parents can see what is happening without having to ask.
Dev Srivastava
Founder, Passionate Research LLC
Research assistant at Virginia Tech and in TJ's Quantum Information and Optics Lab, with two IEEE papers and a state science-fair finalist placing. He has done what he is teaching.
- School
- TJHSST, rising senior
- From
- Loudoun County
- Also
- Founder of Next in Research
- Mentored
- 100+ students
- Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology
- Academies of Loudoun
- 100+ students mentored
The mentors
Current TJHSST students and top-10 university undergraduates. Each one carries three to five students.
Mitali Srivastava
Johns Hopkins University, sophomore
- Studying
- Neuroscience, with a minor in Spanish
- Before that
- Stone Bridge High School, valedictorian
Sleep neuroscience researcher in the Wu Lab at Johns Hopkins and a 2026 Birinyi Sleep Scholar Award finalist. She writes as seriously as she researches: a Johns Hopkins Writing Program Award nominee and the winner of Stone Bridge’s 2024 short story competition, with tutoring experience reviewing academic and college essays. For fun she plays jazz guitar in Baltimore, and was selected for the All-Virginia Guitar and Jazz Ensemble in high school.
Ishaan Kar
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology
- Intended field of study
- Computer Science + Finance
Research assistant under professors at Virginia Tech, Penn State, and James Madison University, with a paper accepted to the 2026 IEEE iGET conference. He won first in Virginia in FBLA Insurance and Risk Management, and in TJ’s Mobile and Web Development Lab he’s building an AR app for furnishing dorm rooms. For fun he lifts at the gym and draws with his younger siblings.
Akshaya Lokam
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology
- Intended field of study
- Neuroscience & Public Health
Neuroscience researcher and clinical shadow at Children’s National Hospital and True Gem Smiles. She is currently investigating cancer cells and scar tissue using Ayurvedic organic compounds in TJ’s specialized Biotechnology Lab. As President of TJ’s Red Cross Chapter, she leads major service projects and is planning a fundraiser in partnership with the National American Red Cross to provide village vaccinations, blending rigorous scientific inquiry with impactful community leadership. As an accomplished competitor, she placed top 10 globally in FBLA and was named an international World Conference Finalist in the Future Problem Solving Competition. For fun she loves to dance and draw!
More joining
We are hiring mentors for the 2026 cohort and add them here as they sign. Every one is interviewed by Dev and carries no more than five students.
What the app does
Simply, a progress monitor and place to book calls.
Families can book a call through our cal.com integration at any time that fits both their schedule and the mentor’s, which is a flexibility most classes don’t offer.
Your child’s mentor writes their timeline and their to-do list manually, after your child’s session.
The Friday Parent Update is written by your child’s mentor and sent via email. It contains a detailed report about what happened that week to keep parents in the loop of their child’s progress.
- Meetings
- One-on-ones and check-ins booked in one place. Group calls and networking sessions join the calendar from December.
- Timeline
- Built around one student: their project, their plan, their pace. No two look alike, and a mentor rewrites it as the work changes.
- Progress
- Which checkpoints are reached, what is next, and the short notes and shared docs behind each one.
- Resources
- Hand-picked courses, videos, and templates in multiple categories, chosen by mentors.
What the timeline looks like
Sample student · click any checkpoint
Progress · sheet 02
Ava’s project journey
Checkpoint 3 of 5 · 40% reached
Rev A · 14 Nov
Written by hand by your mentor
An example, with a made-up student. No two timelines look the same — the checkpoints follow the project, the plan, and the pace of the student they belong to. Your child’s mentor writes every one of them by hand, after the session that earned it.
Book a free
60-minute call
with Dev
I’ll talk to you and your child about my experience applying and getting admitted to TJ and both the Academies of Loudoun; what I wish I had done in middle school to prepare for high school; and how AI has shaped the way I think about my career.
After 30 minutes, I’ll talk to just the parents and spill more information: how I find research opportunities in high school, how I see students build a resume that isn’t padding, how to keep grades up through stressful environments, and what the college planning process has actually looked like. That includes plenty the cohort itself has nothing to do with.
I keep the child out of that second half on purpose. They do not need the pressure, and you do need the information.
Already enrolled? Sign in to your dashboard.