Several Stony Brook University faculty have helped 23 high school students become scholars in the 2017 Regeneron Science Talent Search (formerly, Intel STS Competition), the oldest and most prestigious pre-college science competition in the U.S.
Each scholar receives a $2,000 award from Regeneron with an additional $2,000 going to his or her school. The competition overall awards $3.1 million to provide the opportunities and resources that students need to become the next generation of inventors, entrepreneurs and STEM leaders.
Only 300 students are announced as scholars each year. From this select pool, 40 finalists will be announced on January 24, 2017, and then invited to Washington, D.C., in March to participate in final judging, display their work to the public, meet with notable scientists and compete for the top award of $250,000.
SBU faculty mentors for the 2017 Regeneron scholars include:
Distinguished Professor Benjamin Hsiao, Chemistry
Working with Aurnov Chattopadhyay, University HS, Irvine, CA, on “Sustainable Heavy Metal Remediation Through Novel Nanocellulose Coagulants Synthesized Directly from Raw Biomass” and with Jessica Tian, Del Norte HS, San Diego, CA, on “Antibacterial Property of Cellulose Paper Decorated with Ag/TiO2 Nanocomposites”
Professor Roy Lacey, Chemistry
Working with Matthew Ko, John L. Miller Great Neck North HS, Great Neck, NY, on “Extraction of the Specific Shear Viscosity of the Quark-Gluon Plasma from Measurements of Flow Harmonics in Au + Au Collisions at 200 GeV”
Distinguished Professor Iwao Ojima, Chemistry
Working with Alby Joseph, Walter Tresper Clarke HS, Westbury, NY, on “Optimized Fatty Acid Binding Protein Inhibitors: Augmenting the Viability of a Novel Pain-Relief Mechanism”
Professor Carlos Simmerling, Chemistry
Working with Annette Chang, Woodbridge HS, Irvine, CA, on “Elucidating a Relationship Between Ligand-Flap Interactions and Drug Potency in HIV-1 Protease with Molecular Dynamics Simulations”
Professor William Holt, Geosciences
Working with Rubin Smith, William A. Shine Great Neck South HS, Great Neck, NY, on “Modeling Topography and Mammal Species Diversity within the Western U.S Basin and Range from 36Ma”
Assistant Professor Joel Hurowitz and Associate Professor Troy Rasbury, Geosciences
Working with Alan Chen, Herricks HS, New Hyde Park, NY, on “Understanding the Mobility of Important Trace Elements During Basalt Weathering with Implications for the Mars 2020 Rover Mission”
Professor Brian Colle, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences
Working with Abbigayle Cuomo, Commack HS, Commack, NY, on “A Study of Westward Recurving Tropical Cyclone Tracks in the Atlantic” and with Ben Rhee, Syosset HS, Syosset, NY, on “An Analysis of Power Dissipation in Extratropical Cyclones”
Professor Anne McElroy, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences
Working with Kirti Nath, Ward Melville HS, E. Setauket, NY, on “Assessing the Developmental and Metabolic Toxicity of Neuroactive Pharmaceuticals Using Early Life Stage Zebrafish (Danio rerio)”
Associate Professor Ken-Ichi Takemaru, Pharmacological Sciences
Working with Alia Rizvon, Half Hollow Hills HS East, Dix Hills, NY, on “A Potential Role for CCDC11 in Cytokinesis Evidenced Through Colocalization with Acetylated a-Tubulin Adjacent to Midbody During Abscission”
Professor David Talmage, Pharmacological Sciences, and Distinguished Professor Lorna Role, Neurobiology and Behavior
Working with Ruisi Zhong, Smithtown HS East, Saint James, NY, on “Activation of Ventral Subiculum Neurons by Cued Emotional Learning”
Assistant Professor Tom MacCarthy, Applied Mathematics and Statistics
Working with Arjun Subramaniam, The Harker School, San Jose, CA, on “CadML: A New, Computational Approach to Optimizing Antibody Affinity for Design of Antibody Therapeutics”
Associate Professor, Dimitris Samaras, Computer Science
Working with Veda Murthy, Lexington HS, Lexington, MA, on “Towards a More Accurate Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to Classify Glioma Nuclear Images”
Professor Marcia Simon, School of Dental Medicine, and Distinguished Professor Miriam Rafailovich, Materials Science and Engineering
Working with Emily Peterson, Smithtown HS East, Saint James, NY, on “Lecithin-Retinol Acyl Transferase in Squamous Cell Carcinoma: The Relationship Between Oncology and Wound Repair”
Professor Rafailovich also worked with Yash Samantaray, Syosset HS, Syosset, NY, on “Impact of Coating Dithiocarbamate-Protected Ruthenium Nanoparticles on the Nafion® Membrane in the Performance of a Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell – a Novel Approach,” and she and Associate Professor Stephen Walker, School of Dental Medicine, worked with Natalie Tan, Herricks HS, New Hyde Park, NY, on “The Effect of Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticle Exposure on Undifferentiated and Differentiated U937 Cell Susceptibility to Staphylococcus aureus infection and Dextran Bacterial Antiadhesive Properties in Adipose-derived Stromal Cells”
Assistant Professor Sergey Suchalkin, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Working with Nestor Tkachenko, Ward Melville HS, E. Setauket, NY, on “Can Cars Fly? Eddy Current Levitation as Viable Technology”
Assistant Professor Ya Wang, Mechanical Engineering
Working with Grace Hu, Jericho Senior HS, Jericho, NY, on “Advanced Au-SPIONs: Synthesis and Comparison of Multifunctional Nanoparticles for Personalized Nanomedicine”
Research Assistant Professor Jennie Williams, Medicine–Cancer Prevention
Working with Sandra Li, Jericho HS, Jericho, NY, on “Elucidating Cancer Racial Health Disparities: The Differential Response of African and Caucasian American Colon Cancer Cells to Vitamin E”
Professor Peter Brink, Physiology and Biophysics
Working with Erika Nemeth, Smithtown HS East, Saint James, NY, on “Cell-Based Delivery of Gene-Silencing Products via Gap Junction”
Professor Helmut Norpoth, Political Science
Working with Michael Nachman, Paul D. Schreiber HS, Port Washington, NY, on “An Analysis of Presidential Primaries as General Election Predictors”
Professor Arthur Samuel, Psychology
Working with Kavya Tangella, Ward Melville HS, E. Setauket, NY, on “Hearing Sounds, and the Illusion of Seeing Longer-Lasting Shapes”
View the complete list of scholars
Learn about SBU research opportunities for high school students
Add comment