Despite the daunting odds, Ossining students once again took top honors at the Westchester Science & Engineering Fair, outshining their competitors from 30 other schools.
More than 370 students attended the science fair held Saturday, March 15, competing for recognition and a chance at the grand prize -- an all-expense paid trip to attend and further compete in the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair to be held in Los Angeles, California.
Five Ossining students were selected among the 17 Grand Finalists to attend the “Super Bowl of Science Fairs” which will take place May 11th – 16th, 2014. These students are: Ben Ross, Adam Illowsky, Ari Kanevsky, Alison Winter, and Abigail Kamen. They will represent Westchester & Putnam counties at Intel ISEF, which draws 1,600 science competitors from more than 60 countries across the globe.
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Ben Ross’s project is titled “An optimized analysis of wind flows in the urban environment and the identification of feasible building augmented wind turbine sites.” His research was largely conducted from his own home computer and entailed devising a novel method of analyzing patterns of wind flow in Hoboken, NJ to determine ideal locations for alternative energy wind turbines. Ben’s research mentor was Mr. Cullen Kasunic, a leading researcher in wind energy and VP at Wind Analytics.
Adam Illowsky conducted a research study that took a novel genetic approach to understanding the neurocognitive impacts of repeated concussive impacts such as those associated with professional football players. His project is titled “The MAPT H1 Haplotype is associated with an increased severity of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy”. Adam worked at Columbia University under the direction of Dr. John Crary.
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Ari Kanevsky, a Junior at Ossining High School, conducted a computer science project that modernizes medical technology used to monitor patient blood flow following vascular surgery. His project is titled “An application of machine learning in microsurgery to monitor vascular free tissue transfer.” Ari worked with Dr. Tara Sainath, an IBM Speech Recognition researcher.
Alyson Winter and Abigail Kamen conducted a team project titled “Investigating Key Variables affecting social support in ethnically diverse breast cancer patients”. They worked with mentor Dr. David Lounsbury, an Albert Einstein/ Montefiore Medical Center researcher, to better understand the psychosocial factors affecting minority breast cancer patients in the Bronx, NY.
Additionally, Ossining students won other top awards including six first place winners, six second place winners, seven third place winners, six fourth place winners and 21 special awards winners.
1st place winners: Alyson Winter (Behavioral Science), Abigail Kamen (Behavioral Science), Ari Kanevsky (Computer Science), Ben Ross (Environmental Science), Caitlin Piccirillo-Stosser (Plant Science), Mitchell Radhuber (Physics & Astronomy).
2nd place winners: Emma Honcharski (Environmental Science), Lucia Tonelli (Animal Science), Jared Annibale (Behavioral Science), Brinda Ramesh (Behavioral Science), Adam Illowsky (Biochemistry), Juliet Ivanov (Cell & Molecular Biology).
3rd place winners: Aaron Spring (Animal Science) Joscelyn Saldana (Animal Science), Claudia Guinansaca-Aguilar (Behavioral Science), Elizabeth Keeley (Biochemistry), Katherine Abbot (Biochemistry), Laj Mehta (Cell & Molecular Biology), Stephanie Becker (Cell & Molecular Biology).
4th place winners: Kalissa Sawyer (Behavioral Science), Nicole Ruiz(Behavioral Science), Paul Kleiman (Chemistry), Maria Walsh-Regotti (Engineering), Rebecca Hannan (Medicine & Health), Emil Padikkala (Medicine & Health).
Special Awards include various topic-specific awards including the Intel Excellence in Computer Science Award, US Army Award, US Public Health Service Award and many others.
Special Award Winners: Laj Mehta, Caroline Overacker, Kim Badger, Luke Vutera, Sade Tukuru, Adriel Williams, Rowan Thomas, Tess Halpern, Adam Krupinsky, Johanna Quituisaca, Adam Illowsky, Isabella Perez, Soon il Higashino, Anandan Ray, David Leibert, Aiden Sheridan.
Ossining High School led the way in terms of sheer number of awards received, and continues to live up to its Intel School of Distinction status for achievement in the sciences.
“Congratulations to all the students in the Ossining High School Science Research Program,” said Superintendent Raymond Sanchez.
