Riverhead High School Students Participate in WISE Program

Thirty-two Riverhead High School students recently participated in the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program and many of them attended the Capstone Event at SUNY Stony Brook.

Each of the student groups in attendance gave a presentation on a particular grade level topic.

The Riverhead High School 10th grade presentation was on Civil Engineering and Marine Science, the 11th grade presentation was on Clinical Lab Science/Forensics and the 12th grade project was a STEM Research project.

“The WISE Capstone event was incredible. The staff was friendly and funny. All the schools that participated in WISE were able to present a final project,” Mieko Vail, a Senior WISE member who plans to attend the University of Maryland and major in engineering, said. “Our 12th grade projects were on STEM research topics and it was an experience I now have as I go off to college and get involved in other research projects. The speakers shared freely of their experiences and how women can be successful against the odds.”

Vail and Joanna Messina’s presentation was entitled, “Nature vs. Nurture: Fitness”.

Eleventh grade topics included research topics such as “Forensic Science As A Process” and “Clinical Laboratory Sciences”.

According to Mieko, the keynote speaker, Dr. Joanna Kiryluk, was “very informative in a fun and casual way”.

Kiryluk received her PhD from Warsaw University (Poland) in 2000.

At Stony Brook, she’s initiated and is the leading the high-energy neutrino research with IceCube.

The WISE girls spoke in January with researchers at IceCube live via a Webcast connection from the South Pole that enabled high schools from around the world to ask the researchers questions about their research.

The students that participated included:

• 12th Grade -- Emily Behr, Kimberly Guthrie, Kathryn McKillop, Amy Methven, Melissa Pressler, Mieko Vail, Pamela Karwowski, Joanna Messina, Renee Mott, Hayley Sheridan, Sierra Smith and Maurinne Sullivan.
• 11th Grade -- Leanne Appio, Rossie Bautista, Haley Bingham, Lauren Block, Megan Carrick, Helen Drozd, Gwen Hilles, Brenna Latour, Jade McKrieth, Rachel Phillips, Sierra Roces, Sara Rosenquist and Elsy Salguero.
• 10th Grade -- Vanessa Giron, Isabella Green, Dominique Marichal, Dena Mohammad, Julia Pizzuto, Rachel Sheridan and Viktoriya Tsikh.

RHS Teacher Advisors included: Kimberly Skinner (12th Grade), Magdalena Babicz (11th Grade), and Kelly Evers (10th Grade).

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