Ossining Has 12 Finalists in Environmental Science Fair

Twelve Ossining High School juniors are among the 729 students who are finalists in the 2018 GENIUS Olympiad, an international competition encourages students to contribute to the protection and improvement of the environment.

The students will travel to the State University of New York at Oswego to for the weeklong competition June 11-16.

The Olympiad, which was founded and organized by the nonprofit Terra Science and Education, received 1,657 applicant projects from students in 70 countries. Only juniors at OHS submitted papers for the competition because the June event conflicts with seniors' schedules.

"What makes me really excited about the competition is that they’re all juniors," said Angelo Piccirillo, who co-teaches the Science Research Program with Valerie Holmes. "The fact that so many junior projects were selected really bodes well for next year."

There are five categories in the Olympiad are science, visual and performance arts, business, writing and robotics. The OHS students’ projects are in the sciences.

These are the finalists and the titles of their projects:

• Kellen Cooks: The Analysis of the Disapproval of Graffiti Across Demographic and Geographical Boundaries in New York City
• Maggie Ford: Targeted TNFR (Tumor Necrosis Factor Receptor) Signaling and Complement Inhibition Ameliorate Degenerative Ankylosing Spondylitis
• Nina Foster: Evaluating the Impact of Yoga on Adolescent Sleep Quality
• Romina Gamarra: Improving the Efficiency of Plastic Waste Fuel Mixture with Kerosene
• Emma Montgomery: Advancing Gene Editing Technology via Optimal Base Editors and a Novel Sensor Assay
• Elliot Ocheltree: Designing a Container Ship Hull Using Computational Fluid Dynamics
• Julia Piccirillo-Stosser: Elucidating the Influence of Environmental Factors on the Inhibitory Ability of Antifungal Cutaneous Bacteria Found on the Eastern Redback Salamander (team project)
• Sabrina Piccirillo-Stosser: Elucidating the Influence of Environmental Factors on the Inhibitory Ability of Antifungal Cutaneous Bacteria Found on the Eastern Redback Salamander (team project)
• Dylan Spedalieri: Investigating Microhabitat Preferences of Northern Two Lined Salamanders Using Abiotic and Biotic Indicators of Water Quality
• Ann Stein: Establishing Frictional and Geomechanical Properties of Shale to Predict Seismic Activity
• Kiara Taveras: Elucidating the Influence of Environmental Factors on the Inhibitory Ability of Antifungal Cutaneous Bacteria Found on the Eastern Redback Salamander (team project)
• Keven Victoria: The Novel Use of Histone Lysine-to-Methionine Mutant to Elucidate a Causal Link between Epigenetics and Neuropsychiatric Disease.

(Photo, from left to right, Top row: Maggie Ford, Dylan Spedalieri, Julia Piccirillo- Stosser, Keven Victoria, Kellen Cooks, Elliot Ocheltree, Anne Stein. Bottom row; Emma Montgomery, Nina Foster, Sabrina Piccirillo- Stosser, Kiara Taveras. Not pictured: Romina Gamarra.)