Three Dozen LI Students Named Regeneron Science Scholars

Three dozen Long Island students have been named 2020 Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholars, a prestigious award that puts them in the running to become finalists, and awards them and their schools with a cash prize.

The Scholars were announced today by Regeneron. The 36 Long Islanders are among 300 students nationwide, meaning that Long Island students represent 12 percent of the overall Scholars. The 300 Scholars were selected from nearly 2,000 entrants from across the country.

“Congratulations to all 300 scholars from this year’s Regeneron Science Talent Search and welcome to a network of exceptional student leaders and innovators,” said Hala Mirza, senior vice president of corporate communications and citizenship at Regeneron. “We are thrilled to recognize and honor these students for the many contributions they are making to the STEM community and our broader society. With such a wide array of interests and high-quality work, we are eager to follow their progress in the years to come.”

The Long Island scholars are:

• Andrew Brinton, John F. Kennedy High School, Bellmore: Marsh Restoration: Ribbed Mussels (Geukensia demissa) as a Revival Mechanism to Rebuild the Coastal Salt Marshes of Long Island, New York.
• Katherine St George, John F. Kennedy High School, Bellmore: The Ketogenic Diet Ameliorates The Effects of Caffeine in Seizure Susceptible Drosophila melanogaster.
• Kenar Gelman, John F. Kennedy High School, Bellmore: Chondrocyte Adenosine A2A receptor signaling leads to cellular homeostasis through activation of Protein Kinase A (PKA).
• Yu Zhu, Central Islip Senior High School, Central Islip: The effects of simulated microgravity on the biofilm production and susceptibility of Acinetobacter Tat mutants.
• S Shamtej Singh Rana, Commack High School, Commack: Wildfire Prediction and Reduction for the West Coast of the USA Using a Neural Network Approach.
• Kimberly Liao, Commack High School, Commack: Identification of a Model Agnostic Disease Driver in Non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis; Implications for Drug Development.
• Caitlin Wilkinson, Smithtown High School, East Saint James: Rates and Traits: The Potential for Utilizing Above-ground Plant Traits to Predict Denitrification in Long Island Salt Marshes.
• Jordan Klein, Ward Melville High School, East Setauket: Prevalence of Tick-Borne Diseases in Fire Island Deer Ticks.
• Mariam Quraishi, Ward Melville High School, East Setauket: The Effect of Sibling Status of Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder on Symptom Severity and Social Development.
• Nicole Khaimov, Glen Cove High School, Glen Cove: Emotional Intelligence and Moral Competence Across Age Groups: A Study of Secondary School Students and Teachers.
• Kyra McCreery, North Shore High School, Glen Head: Associations between the Slowdown in North Atlantic Tropical-Cyclone Translation Speed and Intensifying Storm Precipitation.
• Keaton Danseglio, North Shore High School, Glen Head: Transgenerational Effects of Paternal Stress in Drosophila melanogaster.
• Kallista Zhuang, William A. Shine Great Neck South High School, Great Neck: A Novel Link Between Xenoestrogen Bisphenol-A’s Neurotoxicity and Neuroinflammation via Estrogenic Activity and Alzheimer’s Disease Pathogenesis.
• Sejal Gupta, Hicksville Senior High School, Hicksville: Development of a Machine Learning Algorithm to Predict the Path of Joints for Gait Rehabilitation.
• Emily Gan, Jericho Senior High School, Jericho: Light manipulation for outdoor microalgae cultivation: Fluorophore co-cultivation and microbiome characterization of model and environmental isolates.
• Feiyang (Daisy) Dai, Jericho Senior High School, Jericho: Predicting Major Depressive Disorder Treatment Response: Examining Pretreatment Biomarkers GABA and Glx.
• Jennifer Lin, Jericho Senior High School, Jericho: Lysosomal nutrient metabolism: Amino acids and cholesterol synergistically modulate mTORC1 signaling in atherosclerosis .
• Sheryl Lin, Island Trees High School, Levittown: Artesunate and Quercetin in Combination - Mitigation of Amyloid Plaque-Induced Cytotoxicity in Alzheimer's.
• Sara Bahri, Lynbrook High School, Lynbrook: Altered Bilayer Elasticity as a Novel Mechanism for Aminoglycoside Antibiotics’ Toxicity.
• Ella Wesson, Manhasset High School, Manhasset: Engineering One Layer of a Two-Dimensional Acoustic Band Gap Material and Reconstructing the Sound Pressure Field Using Acoustic Holography.
• Kevin Carratu, Manhasset High School, Manhasset: Supplementation of Antioxidants with Curcumin, Quercetin, and L-glutathione to Reduce Dopaminergic Neurodegeneration, Alpha-synuclein Accumulation, and Decreased Motility Associated with Parkinson’s in Caenorhabditis elegans.
• Elizabeth Wu, Manhasset High School, Manhasset: Developing Algorithmic Machinery to Explore the Cosmological Horizon Problem by Numerically Solving Maxwell’s Equations in the Kasner Metric.
• Kevin Gauld, Manhasset High School, Manhasset: Optimizing Neural Image Classifiers Through the Usage of Neural Style Transfer in Image Preprocessing.
• Bhav Patel, Herricks High School, New Hyde Park: Changes in Neural Connectivity Underlying Attention Abilities Before and After Antipsychotic Treatment in First Episode Psychosis Patients.
• Carrie Hsu, Herricks High School, New Hyde Park: Development of a Frustrated Total Internal Reflection Biosensing System for Noninvasive Terahertz Imaging and Detecting Cell Growth.
• Karen Li, The Wheatley School, Old Westbury: Probing the Interactions between Carbohydrates and Aromatic Amino Acids.
• Kreena Totala, Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School, Plainview: The Novel Quantification of White Matter Microstructural Alterations in Thalamocortical Tracts as a Predictive Measure of ADHD Behavior and Subtype in a Pediatric Population.
• Priya Chainani, Paul D. Schreiber High School, Port Washington: The Predictability of U.S. Drug Deaths Through State Level Income Inequality and Neuroticism.
• Jaime Levin, Paul D. Schreiber High School, Port Washington: Categorizing geocoded anti-vaccination tweets in urban areas using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and dictionary-based modeling.
• William Borges, Roslyn High School, Roslyn Heights: An Innovative Approach to Recover Nitrogen from Wastewater Using Nanostructured Cellulose Sulfate.
• Andrew Goldberg, Roslyn High School, Roslyn Heights: Compression of Intrinsic Neural Timescale in Schizophrenia.
• Jake Stoller, Roslyn High School, Roslyn Heights: Examining the Effects of Decitabine on the Efficacy of DS-3032b in Dedifferentiated Liposarcoma.
• Stephanie Lin, Smithtown High School, Smithtown: Convolutional Neural Network of Dynamic Contrast Enhanced MRI Detects Axillary Lymph Node Metastasis in Breast Cancer Patients Pre Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy.
• Hailey Edelman, Syosset High School, Syosset: Exploring the Role of Cannabidiol in a Caenorhabditis elegans Model.
• Michelle Li, Syosset High School, Syosset: Linarin and Luteolin Elicit Anti-Amyloid-BETA Cytotoxicity and Inflammation Properties as Novel Treatments for Alzheimer’s Disease.
• Abishek Ravindran, W. Tresper Clarke High School, Westbury: Implementation of Novel Sector Weight and Google Trends Data Objectives using MOEA/D Curtails Systematic Risk for Quintessential Investors .

As Scholars, all of the students received $2,000 awards for both themselves and their schools.

On Jan. 22, 40 of the 300 Scholars will be named finalists in the Regeneron Science Talent Search. They will receive an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C. from March 5 through 11 to compete for more than $1.8 million in prizes.