Ossining Students Win 58 Awards at Science Competition

Ossining students received dozens of awards at the Regeneron Westchester Science & Engineering Fair March 16, including 10 first-place winners.

Three of the 10 were also grand-prize winners who will advance to the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair in Arizona May 12-17. They are Kellen Cooks (geographic information system study of graffiti disapproval), Giovanni Santucci (virtual reality project for assessing concussions) and Magdalene Ford (ankylosing spondylitis arthritis immunology project). Twelve individual winners and three teams from Westchester will participate in the Intel ISEF.

OHS students received a total of 58 awards, more than any other year the district has competed, according to Angelo Piccirillo and Valerie Holmes, who co-teach the Science Research Program. More than 650 students participated in WESEF, which took place at Sleepy Hollow High School.

“No other schools even came close to the number of placement winners we earned,” Ms. Holmes said.

The other OHS students who won first-place awards were:

• Dylan Spedaliere, animal sciences
• Ryan Lynch, behavioral and social sciences
• Nina Foster, behavioral and social sciences
• Brian Dockery, chemistry
• Hammad Hassan, computational biology/bioinformatics
• Anne Stein, earth science
• Romina Gamarra, environmental sciences.

Ten won second-place awards:

• Florencia De Armas, behavioral and social sciences
• Carmen Mickelson, behavioral and social sciences
• Dylan Ortiz, behavioral and social sciences
• Emma Montgomery, cellular and molecular biology
• Fanny Zhang, cellular and molecular biology
• Gabriella Strzeletski, medicine and health
• Justine Valentino, medicine and health
• Patrick Saint Ange, neuroscience
• Keven Victoria, neuroscience
• Michelle Lin, physics and astronomy.

Six projects received third-place awards:

• Caroline Reed, animal sciences
• Julia Piccirillo-Stosser, Sabrina Piccirillo-Stosser and Kiara Taveras, animal sciences
• Pujita Sunder, behavioral and social sciences
• Vishnu Polkampally, biochemistry
• Elena Tomescu, cellular and molecular biology
• Keyla Cabrera, medicine and health.

Five earned fourth-place awards:

• Raymond Liu, cellular and molecular biology
• Vikesh Subramanian, engineering
• Nikita Subramanian, engineering
• Elliot Ocheltree, environmental sciences
• Tyler Shaw, physics and astronomy.

Two OHS students are among nine in Westchester selected to attend the GENIUS Olympiad, an international competition focused on environmental issues. It takes place at SUNY Oswego in June:

• Fanny Zhang (cellular and molecular biology)
• Hammad Hassan (biology/bioinformatics).

Science Research students also won numerous special awards at WESEF:

• Julia Piccirillo-Stosser, Sabrina Piccirillo-Stosser and Kiara Taveras: American Meteorological Society Award
• Mishal Zia: American Psychological Association Award
• Anne Stein: Association for Women Geoscientists Award
• Tej Verma: Society for In Vitro Biology Award
• Caroline Reed and Deborah Johnston: Stockholm Junior Water Prizes
• Jacqueline Mundadan: Innovations in Biological Sciences Research Award
• Jacqueline O’Brien: Critica Behavioral Science Achievement Award
• Peter Wei and Mary Nichols: Excellence in Medical Research Awards
• Natalia Fel: Future of Medicine Award
• Claire Martin: Momentive Inventing Possibilities Award
• Hana Lowenthal: Walter Kass Memorial Award for Excellence in Behavioral Science
• Ariana Cardenas: Greg Horrace Creative Approach to Research Award
• Colleen Schmid and Matthew Ippoliti: Environmental Perspiration Award
• Magdalene Ford and Vishnu Polkampally: George Yancopoulos Young Scientist Awards.