Student Groups & Clubs

Student Leaders: Owen Whalen, Thomas Urano, Craig Urano, Bennett Cuculich
Faculty Sponsor: Mark Nicholas
Mission: Students learning, using, and educating AI in different spaces.

Student Leaders: Eva Kasal, Earth Gira, Courtney Wu & Hana Ilahi
Faculty Sponsors: Kate Ward & Anne Deken
Mission: To educate the Burroughs community about anatomy by participating in (or watching) hands-on dissections of various specimen.

Student Leader: Devon Dehghani, Jack Parsons, Monet Witherspoon
Faculty Sponsor: Wayne Winters
Mission: The JBS Aviation Club is committed to involving and motivating students in the field of aviation. Club meetings will focus on the topics surrounding aviation including building model aircraft, exploring airfields, experiencing simulations and learning from pilots.

Student Leaders: Hana Banga & Megan Liu
Faculty Sponsor: Martha Keeley
Mission: To allow students to learn about potential careers and opportunities to further their understanding of different areas of the biomedical sciences through speakers.

Student Leaders: Jack O'Brien, Ken Zheng, Bella Lombardo, Shelby Lombardo, Willa Yearson, & Christopher Tao
Faculty Sponsors: Tracy Walther & Jennifer Jones
Mission: The mission of Bee Club is to educate the Burroughs community about bees, take care of the bees on campus, encourage pollination, and increase awareness about bee issues through having fun and providing bee-related products.

Student Leaders: Daniel Greene, Arya Bhattacharya, Katharine Pruett, & Hana Banga
Faculty Sponsors: Jim Holmes
Mission: To educate Burroughs students on business ideas and topics. 

Student Leaders: Graham Engler & Xander Theodos
Faculty Sponsors: Mike Gesiakowski
Mission: To provide enrichment for students beyond the classroom experience and expose the greater JBS community to the ceramic arts.

Student Leaders: Maaz Chohan, Sam Lu & Jack Parsons
Faculty Sponsor: Mark Smith, Alex Wu & Tim Baker
Mission: To teach and foster the love of chess and to compete in the Gateway Chess League.

Student Leaders: Nora Woodruff, Luna Aramburu, Claire Lattanand & Nithya Gnanarajah
Faculty Sponsor: Sorsha Maness
Mission: To share the Classics with the wider school community and provide students of the Classics with enriching activities.

Student Leaders: John Zarek, Samanyu Koduri & Story Kummer
Faculty Sponsors: Mark Smith
Mission: To educate the JBS community on current events and to provide a space for students to discuss the issues of the day.

Student Leaders: Sarah Ding
Faculty Sponsor: Tracy Walther
Mission: The purpose of this club is to educate the student body about the environment and climate change, cultivate a love for our planet, and provide opportunities for students to take political action to prevent climate change.

Student Leaders: Charlie Desai, Story Kummer & Caitlyn O'Shea
Faculty Sponsor: Martha McMahon
Mission: To provide a welcoming environment for people of all genders to learn how to code and feel comfortable making mistakes.

Student Leaders: Alexander Doty, Yuktha Rayani, Ayomide Ajakaiye & Rafe Rosario-Blake
Faculty Sponsor: Shannon Koropchak, Andrew Newman, Jon Bang, Carrie Dodson-Ching & Aaron Dowdall
Mission: To promote a greater understanding of Model United Nations and its importance as well as give students within and outside of the Burroughs community a formal space to hold proactive debate on global events and achieve a greater understanding of diverse viewpoints.

Student Leader: Jack Parsons & Sam Lu
Faculty Sponsor: Jason Taff
Mission: To engage the student body through math related activities and have a good time.

Student Leaders: Anya Liu, Beatrice Guller & Jacob Sacks
Faculty Sponsors: Jim Lewis
Mission: To provide insight and hands-on experience for legal cases and courtroom proceedings. 

Student Leaders: Sarah Brown, Ella Lazaroff, Sophia Frater & Grover Golfstein
Faculty Sponsor: Mark Smith
Mission: To spread an interest in philosophy and provide a place for interested students to discuss and learn about philosophy.

Student Leaders: Shangri-La Hou, Sophia Byrne & Sarah Ding
Faculty Sponsor: Joy Gebhardt
Mission: To raise student interest in and appreciation of, the reading,  writing and discussion of poetic work. The club will accomplish this by distributing written work to its members, by meeting to discuss poems, poetic forms and creative movements in poetry, by engaging in free-writing time in response to prompts/other relevant information and by sharing student work with peers.

Student Leaders: Dalton Harrold & Gavin Daengsurisri
Faculty Sponsor: Alan Chung
Mission: To participate in the FIRST® Tech Challenge (FTC) robotics competition. FIRST® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded to inspire young people’s interest and participation in science and technology. It provides unique opportunities for students to apply science, technology, engineering and math-related concepts and skills by competing in the FTC robotics program.

Faculty Sponsors: Marina Smallwood, Scott Heinzel, Tracy Walther, & Darren Wang
Mission: We participate in academic competitions consisting of a series of 23 rotating team events, which reflect the ever-changing nature of genetics, earth science, chemistry, anatomy, physics, geology, mechanical engineering and technology.

Student Leaders: Kate Grady, Isaiah Knispel, Lizzy Shellhaas & Sophia Bryne
Faculty Sponsors: Dan Barton, Eric Knispel & Kerri Rowe
Mission: To engage students in hands-on engineering and to increase environmental awareness.

Student Leaders: Addison Grantham & Barrett Hughes
Faculty Sponsors: Andrew Newman
Mission: Providing the community with information on how they can positively interact with our oceans, rivers and marine life. 

Student Leaders: Daniel Greene & Ted Spetnagel
Faculty Sponsors: Drew Battles
Mission: To provide a platform for interested students to learn from speakers in a diverse range of fields. 

Student Leaders: Sarah Ding, Barrett Hughes, Sophia Frater & Asha Krishnasamy
Faculty Sponsors: Jeanne Gillanders
Mission: “To relentlessly pursue an equitable world for every child” with the help of Burroughs community.

Student Leaders: Mischa Ahmad, Olivia Lu, Anokhi Desai & Thomas Smith
Faculty Sponsor: Julie Shimabukuro
Mission: To increase awareness of Asian culture, country by country, through the study of the history, language, art, religion, music and food, and to help students gain a better understanding of how race and ethnicity inform identity. 

Faculty Sponsor: Andy Chen
Mission: To instill the joy of living through the advancement of community. We believe that it is an integral part of education during these formative years to cultivate character and compassion by productive interaction. Welcoming all, regardless of background or opinion, Diversity E.T.C. strives to serve as a clearinghouse for ongoing, open discourse, with the goal of encouraging affinities within the Burroughs community. Functioning to enhance learning through formal meetings, informal conversations and planned activities, we are always striving to promote awareness and enrich consciousness.

Student Leaders: Luna Aramburu & Monet Witherspoon
Faculty Sponsors: Babeth Dyer
Mission: To educate and engage the John Burroughs community on the breadth and beauty of Francophile history, culture and politics.

Student Leaders: Ayomide Ajakaiye, Charlotte Petersen-Kopman, Yuktha Rayani & Sabie Witt
Faculty Sponsor: Ashley Edgerton 
Mission: To promote gender equity, spread awareness and work to create solutions to prevalent gender issues in our community through public outreach and events within Burroughs.

Student Leaders: Isabel Cepeda, Lucia del Pilar, Marcos Mahia, Sophia Frater & Daniel Bernal
Faculty Sponsor: Maria Cohen
Mission: To promote the study and appreciation of the culture of Spanish speaking countries through fun activities.

Student Leader: Sarah Brown, Caleb Arnow, Sabrina Small, Ari Duel & Evelyn Ziaee
Faculty Sponsor: Diana Wood
Mission: To inform the student body about Jewish culture and to create a safe and welcoming community for those who want to learn more.

Student Leaders: Mischa Ahmad, Asha Krishnasamy and Azin Mofidi
Faculty Sponsor: Holly Lorencz
Mission: To create an environment separate from the larger umbrella of the Asian Affinity and Asian Culture Club for people of South Asian and Middle Eastern backgrounds to come together and discuss important topics and themes within their culture and identities. 

Faculty Sponsors: Sarah Hasselman
Mission: To provide a place where people of all different backgrounds and identities can come together to have a safe and constructive conversation. 

Student Leader: Audrey Gray, Celia Ross & Naomi Sherman
Faculty Sponsor: Jamie Wagner
Mission: The Political Action Club focuses on developing the agency of students to affect positive change through the political process. Students will learn how to exercise advocacy actions such as writing politicians and decision-makers, calling the offices of these leaders, and lobbying these leaders directly in-person. The Political Action Club is open to individuals across the political spectrum to learn these skills and will help train groups and other clubs interested in political advocacy.

Student Leaders: Janae Harris, Gabrielle Moore & Madison Moore
Faculty Sponsor: Andranique Ellis & Kristin Pass
Mission: To support discussion of issues relevant to the intersection of race and socioeconomic status, engaging in "revealing" activities that highlight inherent privilege, or lack thereof, by virtue of one's race of socioeconomic status and by doing this work to help make and anti-racist culture in the Burroughs community.

Student Leaders: Molly Magarian, Rafe Rosario-Blake, Iris Sommer, Theo Wolfgram, Molly Kiley, Charlotte Kaye & Caroline Nelson
Faculty Sponsors: Darryl Calkins & Katarina Fernandez
Mission: To represent the LGBTQIA+ community in an effort to increase awareness of and safety for Gender and Sexuality Minorities (GSM) in the Burroughs community. This is done by spreading information about various gender and sexuality identities through meetings, assembly speeches and events, as well as promoting response to any issues which may infringe upon the rights of those who identify as a GSM.

Student Leaders: Ayomide Ajakaiye, Isabel Cepeda, Anya Liu & Aarnavi Paduru
Faculty Sponsors: Daniel Harris
Mission: To create a publication in the 'zine style, focusing on creating meaningful and respectful conversation among members of the JBS community on the topics of diversity and inclusion. It is a publication that is submission-based and includes all types of artistic expression.

Student Leaders: Mawdo Diallo, Barghav Vissa & Alexander Doty
Faculty Sponsors: Carrie Dodson-Ching
Mission: To promote religious literacy on campus and challenge assumptions on religion through talking about experiences and engagement with other clubs.

Student Leaders: Mira Nayak, Katherine Pruett, Sophia Frater, Ella Deutsch, Barrett Hughes
Faculty Sponsor: Sally Kilbride
Mission: To aid and ease the navigation of kids under twenty-one through the world of middle/high school and the stress and/or mental obstacles that may be encountered along the way.

Student Leaders: Lily Schnuck & Georgia Hite
Faculty Sponsor: Meridith Thorpe & Meghan DiGiulio
Mission: To encourage members of the JBS community to develop their ability to defend themselves when appropriate in varying situations. 

Student Leaders: Praveen Vissa, Evan Gallegos
Faculty Sponsor: Holly Lorencz
Mission: CRISIS seeks to educate the JBS community about global issues and affairs significantly focusing on a specific issue.

Student Leaders: Barghav Vissa, Connor Woods, Daniel Greene, Jackson Makepeace & Ted Spetnagel
Faculty Sponsor: Darryl Calkins
Mission: Welcome to JBS Gourmand, John Burroughs School’s food writing publication and club. Our aim is to promote cultural diversity through the palate. The publication achieves this by providing a space for the students and members of the John Burroughs community to free-write opinionated pieces, tier lists, and reviews on restaurants or foods. The club’s events include taste-testing different snacks, foods, and restaurants.

Editor-in-Chief: Arden Sigmund
Faculty Sponsors: Erica Moore, Bobby Bloch, & Zari Muhammad
Mission: To have students work together from the beginning of the school year through March to produce a traditional yearbook called the Governor. Under the direction of the senior editors-in-chief, students are responsible for page layout, design, writing, editing and photography. Students work together during open meeting times and individually to complete these tasks.

Editor-in-Chief: Celia Ross
Faculty Sponsor: Aaron Dowdall
Mission: To humorously engage the student body.

Editors-in-Chief: Beatrice Guller, Shangri-La Hou, & Kate Teasdale
Faculty Sponsor: Ellie DesPrez 
Mission: To promote visual arts and creative writing while collecting pieces for the annual publication of the student literary magazine, The Review. We host regular meetings to review nominations, which are open to all grade levels. In addition, The Review sponsors the annual Review Preview, a music and spoken word festival.

Editors-in-Chief: On hiatus 23-24
Faculty Sponsors: On hiatus 23-24
Mission: To nurture and help showcase the creative writing and art of middle school students. Participants support each other as writers in after-school creative workshop gatherings, and help to edit and lay out the literary and art magazine Works in Progress: An Anthology of Middle School Creative Work at Burroughs.

Editors-in-Chief: Hana Ilahi & Nicole Murphy
Faculty Sponsor: Sarah Hasselman & Megan Zmudczynski
Mission: To be a beacon of independent journalism and critical thinking at Burroughs. Our members will ask questions to spark candid, respectful conversations about topics both within our school and the global community and report about them accurately. We will not stop in our pursuit of objectivity and will be the microphone that amplifies student voices.

Student Leaders: On hiatus
Faculty Sponsor: On hiatus
Mission: To welcome students from any grade who have an interest in being a leader and friend to students who attend Aim High. Our mission is to provide assistance and leadership through monthly planned activities.

Student Leaders: Celia Thayer, Will Donnelly & Will Duncan
Faculty Sponsor: Sally Kilbride
Mission: To educate the JBS community on current events and to provide a space for students to discuss the issues of the day.

Student Leaders: Caroline Clarke, Anya Liu, Sofie Oztok & Elisa Wimmer
Faculty Sponsor: Donya Allison
Mission: To spread awareness of animal welfare issues occurring locally and around the globe. The club is education and service based.

Student Leaders: Gabrielle Moore & Madison Moore
Faculty Sponsor: Laura Crowley
Mission: To provide assistance to people living with ALS (or other degenerative diseases) throughout the St. Louis area. While in the homes of patients, students perform household chores that are difficult for people living with these conditions. The club also raises money to help fund ALS research and participates in community-wide events that raise ALS awareness.

Student Leaders: Margot LaVinge, Celia Thayer, Ayla Pellegrini
Faculty Sponsor: Alex Wu
Mission: We will be educating the Burroughs community about what it's like to have cancer and to go through the several different treatment processes. We will fundraise for pediatric cancer research.

Student Leaders: Shivani LaBore, Isabel Cepeda, Sahana Madala, Claire Dillon, Jayla Pruitt & Sameera Rao
Faculty Sponsor: Holly Lorencz
Mission: To enable Burroughs students to help people in other countries by providing micro-loans to assist individuals around the world in growing small businesses. We focus on supporting single women building their independence. Burroughs students will raise money, then choose the people, causes and businesses they want to support.

Student Leaders: Each activity is chaired by a different set of student leaders
Faculty Sponsors: Glenn Dutch, Jim Holmes, Sally Kilbride, Emily Patterson, Kim Bouldin-Jones, Jill Donovan, Ashley Edgerton, Kristin Pass, & Meghan Rathert
Mission: To promote social consciousness, cultivate relationships, foster empathy, and inspire lives of civic responsibility by compassionately engaging with the greater St. Louis community through volunteering and service.

Student Leaders: Hall Chapman & Lachlan Guthrie
Faculty Sponsor: Peter Tasker
Mission:  Organize donations of gently used sports equipment for children in need.

Student Leaders: Sophie Buchowski, Ayomide Ajakaiye, & Lucy Collier
Faculty Sponsor: Aaron Dowdall
Mission:  Aids refugees in the St. Louis region through volunteering, providing assistance and fundraising activities. Our organization gives students the chance to engage with refugees in our community with the hopes of helping them rebuild their lives.

Student Leaders: Bobby Dunn & Frankie Dunn
Faculty Sponsor: Matt Buha
Mission:  Connect the Burroughs community with veterans living in the St. Louis area by volunteering at the Missouri Veterans Home and other related organizations.

Student Leaders: Madee Omran, Jack O'Brien & Camden Hosler
Faculty Sponsor: Jill Donovan
Mission: To learn about wild birds, the issues that plague their populations, and what we can do to help.

Student Leaders: Owen Whalen, Danny Roth & Dylan Boekholt
Faculty Sponsor: Tim Baker
Mission: To bring together the Burroughs community while building new and strengthening existing relationships between students, faculty, alumni and all of those in between by holding cars and coffee type events.

Student Leaders: Audrey Schaefer, Iris Sommer, Morgan Wright & Emily Bernstein
Faculty Sponsor: Jim Lowe
Mission: To provide a place where the student body can practice culinary skills, learn techniques and enjoy food together. 

Student Leaders: Jerry Chang, Aayan Goyal & Courtney Wu
Faculty Sponsor: Jerry Estes
Mission: To provide opportunities for students to become more comfortable performing music and to incorporate cultural diversity and various genres into these performances.

Student Leaders: Davin Rich, Elsa Lattanand, Alexander Edleman, Adi Veeramachaneni
Faculty Sponsor: Paul Salomon
Mission: To serve as a welcoming environment to promote awareness and increase participation in board games and a variety of other different media that are less popular. We strive to be inclusive in our activities, and, above all else, to simply have fun.

Student Leaders: Arden Sigmund, Kate Teasdale, Nicole Murphy, Ava Purcell, Avery Danis
Faculty Sponsor: Kate Grantham 
Mission: Provides students the chance to read books outside of class and gather to discuss with peers!

Student Leaders: Jack Parsons & Graham Engler
Faculty Sponsor: Paul Salomon
Mission: To create a relaxing environment where students can have fun by playing video games and watching professional esports

Student Leader: Hudson Freiman & Perla Eidson
Faculty Sponsor: Wayne Winters
Mission: To provide a fun outlet for those who enjoy engineering, designing, or physics, this club provides a space for members to design a marble course or track to let their creativity shine in new, inventive ways.

Student Leaders: Anya Liu, Beatrice Guller & Jacob Sacks
Faculty Sponsor: Jim Lewis
Mission: To provide insight and hands-on experience for legal cases, and court room proceedings.

Student Leaders: Wilson Von Rohr, Noah Clerk & Kenley Satcher
Faculty Sponsor: Joseph Novak
Mission: To bring passionate students together in the creation of short films.

Student Leaders: Brendan Purcell
Faculty Sponsor: Drew Battles
Mission: The Music History Club strives to engage students into the world of music, especially music throughout history. This club focuses on the different decades and genres of music in order to further educate and entertain the minds of students interested in music, one of the oldest industries in America.

Student Leaders: Calvin Varble, Aidan Davis & Carter Foote
Faculty Sponsor: Nathan Fraley
Mission: Pickleball Club aims to promote physical fitness, foster teamwork, and create a welcome environment for students of all skill levels.

Student Leaders: Connor Woods, Samanyu Koduri, Sophia Frater
Faculty Sponsor: Jerry Estes
Mission: To have fun while supporting the community.

Student Leaders: Jack O'Brien, Ken Zheng, Camden Hosler & Maaz Chohan
Faculty Sponsor: Michael Haveman
Mission: To provide a place where the student body can go to learn and have fun while doing puzzles.

Student Leaders:  Connor Woods
Faculty Sponsor: Matt Tomlinson
Mission: Bringing the joy of the sport to those who cannot participate in the activity during the regular season, this club organizes volleyball games to promote community, build friendships and have fun.

Student Leader: Katharine Pruett, Caroline Novak, Rosalie Tasker, Gavin King, Clay Christenson & George Arnold
Faculty Sponsor: Jud Dieffenbach
Mission: To create unity throughout the student body, increase school spirit and expand student involvement within school sporting events.

Student Body President: Monét Witherspoon
Faculty Sponsors: Kate Grantham & Jeanne Gillanders
Mission: To direct student organizations and help establish an understanding between students and other branches of the JBS community. It creates an atmosphere and a forum for the open discussion of school problems. Congress helps define and implement the JBS philosophy and is the main student vehicle to initiate change within the school. Past activities include the Dance Marathon, Movie Night, Commons Café and Field Day. All meetings are open to the student body. The Student Congress is comprised of the president of each class, Chief Justice of the Student Court, Student Body President, and an appointed Chief of Staff.

Chief Justice: Charlotte Petersen-Kopman
Faculty Sponsors: Steven Collier & Pete McKeown 
Mission: To hear cases arising from alleged violations of school rules. The Student Court is composed of ten students, including a chief justice, two seniors, one junior, one sophomore, one freshman, one eighth grader, two bailiffs and the court secretary. The Student Court offers the community unique opportunities for learning and developing fostered responsibility. Throughout the school year, the court meets weekly to discuss and process more than 500 cases and demonstrate some sophisticated judgments and creative punishments.

Student Leaders:  Hanna Scheessele & Sylvia Andrews
Faculty Sponsor: Kristin Pass
Mission: To provide a welcoming environment for all to learn and share skills relating to fiber arts.

Student Leaders:  Naya Tekwani & Adriana DiMartini
Faculty Sponsor: Pete McKeown
Mission: Encourage JBS students to enjoy fun activities during the winter and raising money for children in need of warm clothes.