Parul Pubbi looks in the mirror in the morning and sees science.

“If you get up in the morning, splash water on your face, and then put on makeup, that’s two minutes of your day, but already you’ve used science,” said the high school sophomore.

Leave it to a teenage girl to think of makeup as science. But Pubbi’s curiosities are not frivolous — she wants to learn about the chemicals in her foundation and eye shadow and understand how they affect her skin. As Pubbi researches these questions, she’ll be able to do more than write up a school report. At Torrey Pines High, she can conduct a study and try to get it published in a scientific journal.