HHS Science Research Students Expand Learning Through Summer

There was no break for many of the Harrison High School Science research students, who spent the summer continuing their research. Keon Azar continued his studies at Brown University, Anna Cahn at Harrison High School, Lauren Cole at a joint venture for Columbia University, Savannah Holmes at Harrison High School, Sarina Iraj at New York Medical College, Chandha Kim worked at Columbia University, Saihly Rodriguez at the Bronx Zoo, and Brian Siegel at CUNY.

Here are small snippets of their work:

Keon Azar : Keon spent four weeks of the summer researching at Brown University. He interned in a physics lab under the mentorship of Assistant Professor Jonathan Pober. The goal of the lab group’s research is to make detections of a form of radiation emitted from neutral hydrogen, known as 21-cm line radiation. The detection of the 21-cm line from the early universe is viewed as the next great frontier in observational cosmology. It would allow for the creation of a 3D model of a period known as the cosmic “dark ages”.

Anna Cahn : Anna spent her time researching the use of aloe vera as an alternative green fire retardant to replace the more well known “toxic” flame retardants that are used in everyday furniture and clothing. Anna spent her days in contact with her mentor, Chris Cadou, a professor at University of Maryland, to design and execute an experiment at her in school lab at Harrison High School that would test the retardant abilities of aloe vera.

Lauren Cole : Lauren researched developmental cognitive neuroscience at Columbia University. Lauren's research focuses on age related differences in emotional reactivity and regulation in adolescents. Lauren was in contact with her mentor, Rebecca Martin, a recent PhD graduate at Columbia, who helped her expand her current research and gather data. To add fMRI scans to her research, Lauren analyzed past studies about the relationship between behavior and structural changes in the brain, specifically the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex.

Savannah Holmes : Savvy spent the summer conducting an in-house experiment at Harrison High School. She explored the epigenetic effects that heavy metals have on multi-generations on a species. Savvy’s interest stemmed from the Flint, Michigan water crisis and the need to find a solution to remediate the land from heavy metal exposure, namely lead. Savvy’s idea was to use phytoremediation, or plants, as is a low-risk way to remove lead from the soil surrounding the Flint River. However, she questioned the effect the lead had on the plants themselves and on future generations.

Sarina Iraj : Sarina was a returning student in the Summer Trainees in Academic Research Program at New York Medical College this summer for eight weeks. Sarina's research focuses on the cardioprotection of the grape-derived polyphenol resveratrol on the lifespan of Drosophila melanogaster. Sarina conducted her research under the mentorship of Dr. Frances Hannan of the Cell Biology and Anatomy department and Dr. Barbara Doonan in Cellular and Molecular Biology department. Her study focused on NF1 mutant fruit flies and the significance of resveratrol in increasing the lifespan through the prevention of heart disease.

Chanha Kim : Chanha spent six weeks over the summer researching in a lab at the Columbia University Medical Center. He interned under the mentorship of Jianing Fu and lab director/professor Megan Sykes. The research is focused on reducing rejection rates of patients after intestinal transplantation by studying the coexistence of donor and recipient immune cells, or chimerism. Chimerism is the state in which donor immune cells reside in the recipient's body for a prolonged period of time without being killed by the recipient's immune cells. T He specifically studied the role of γδ T cells in intestinal transplantation, and how those T cells are different from previously studied αβ T cells, in terms of both their association with graft rejection rates and donor chimerism turnover rates.

Saihly Rodriguez : Saihly spent the summer researching at the Bronx Zoo. She is interested in whether enrichments provided by the zoo are effective in decreasing stereotypic behaviors of big mammals. In particular, she mapped out the enclosures of big mammals (polar bears, tigers, lions) and then divided them into zones. Then, she systematically observed the amount of time that the animals spent in each zone. She found that even though the zoo is conscious of providing enrichment for the animals that several, especially the lions and the polar bears, spent most of their time in only one zone of the enclosure.

Brian Siegel : Brian researched in an optics lab at City College of New York for two months over the summer. He interned under the mentorship of Professor and Director of Lab Dr. Vinod Menon. With the assistance of graduate students in the research group, he fabricated a hyperbolic metamaterial on polystyrene spheres to increase absorbance and coupling of light of conventional nanophotonic devices in the visible spectrum.