Hendrick Hudson Has a Fine Showing at Westlake Science Fair

Dr. Christine Rogers of the Hendrick Hudson High School science research program reports that “Students did very well on June 6 at the Westlake Science Fair, a competition for first year students.” The annual event is held at Westlake High School in the southern Westchester town of Mt. Pleasant. This year the fair was especially large, with 382 students, 24 local high schools, and 250 judges.

“This is the only science research competition of its kind in New York State that provides the opportunity for first-year science research students to present, via poster board in a competitive setting, their understanding of all aspects of previously published research as well as their design of an intended original research project,” Dr. Rogers said.

Five Hendrick Hudson students were in attendance: Margaret Gruber competed with a proposal to design a new therapy for Alzheimer’s disease; Matthew Gofman investigated the relationship between gene expression and schizophrenia; Kathryn Kenny researched how Music Therapy could alleviate chronic pain type I; Deepa Mistry proposed to look at the action Vitamin D on skin’s depigmentation in the autoimmune disease Vitiligo; and Melanie Porras proposed to design a transparent solar panel, which could be used as windows to power buildings.

Deepa Mistry won First Place in the Biology category (there were many Biology categories, Dr. Rogers noted, to give everyone a fair advantage), and Margaret Gruber won Third Place in Health and Medicine

“This competition is a great way to practice and all students did a fantastic work on their projects and should be commended for their outstanding presentations,” Dr. Rogers said with pride.

Photo Caption: (L-R) Kathryn Kenny; Margaret Gruber; Melanie Porras; Deepa Mistry; Matthew Gofman.