Eleven Ossining Students Advance in Prestigious Science and Humanities Symposium

Eleven Ossining High School students who participated in a regional Junior Science and Humanities Symposium Feb. 4 will progress to the upstate New York competition.

Six of the 11 students who will present their original scientific research in Albany March 7 and 8 will be vying for a chance to attend the national symposium in April. The other five will take part in the competitive poster category.

This is the 13th consecutive year that OHS will have more student finalists making presentations in the upstate symposium than any other school in the Westchester Rockland Subregional Junior Science and Humanities Symposium – six out of 32 students overall.

The Ossining students, who are part of the Fundamentals of Science Research Program, participated in the sub-regional competition at John Jay High School in Cross River.

Angelo Piccirillo, who co-teaches the Science Research Program with Valerie Holmes, said he attributes the students’ success to their work ethic. “They work really hard and they take it very seriously,” he said. “It’s a team effort. The students help one another. These are great kids.”

The first-place winners at the sub-regional competition are Adriana Scanteianu (bioinformatics/computer science); Lorenzo Muranelli (cell and molecular biology/biochemistry III); Brianna Cauthen (medicine and health II); and Eliana Johnston (medicine and health I). Second-place winners who will make presentations in Albany are Nikhil Shah (cell and molecular biology/biochemistry II) and Ben Radhuber (environment).

Gregory Vutera received a second-place award at the sub-regional symposium, although he did not qualify to make a speaker presentation in Albany. Instead, he will make a poster presentation. Four other students who received top awards for their speaker presentations Feb. 4 will make poster presentations in Albany. They are third-place winner John Kim (behavior I); and fourth-place winners Alec DeCaprio (behavior I), Mark Zhinin (cell and molecular biology/biochemistry I) and Lior Raz-Farley (cell and molecular biology/biochemistry II).

The students who make poster presentations aren’t competing for spots in the national symposium.

Ossining Superintendent Raymond Sanchez congratulated the Science Research Program scholars on their achievements, along with Mr. Piccirillo and Ms. Holmes, who have guided so many students to success. “The program provides students with the opportunity to be creative and to innovate and helps develop tomorrow's leaders,” Mr. Sanchez said.

Fourteen other OHS students who made poster presentations at the Rockland and Westchester symposium received awards. They are:

First place:

• Jared Fel (biology I)
• Skyler Jones (physical science II)
• Chinmai Deo (medicine and health I), who won third place overall
• Sarah Hoffman (neuroscience I)
• Jack Kaitz (medicine and health II)
• Reid Kamosa and Pedro Montes De Oca (environmental sciences I)

Second place:

• Madiha Zia (neuroscience I)
• Oliver Krupinski (animal/plant science I)
• Celine Khoo (behavior II)
• Eric Schmid (physical science III)
• Olivia Lenaghan (biology I)

Third place:

• Isabel Slingerland (behavior II)
• Kristen Minihan (biology II)