Smithtown HS East Science Program Heading To International Fair

ST. JAMES, NY — Students in the Smithtown High School East ThINK Discovery Program who presented their research at the Long Island Science and Engineering Fair will soon get to show their talent on an international level.

From engineering re-writeable and encryptable paper to using nitrogen-fixing bacteria to improve the growth of cherry tomato plants, the students in the Smithtown East ThINK
Discovery Program competed against all schools on Long Island. Each student placed with outstanding results, according to the Smithtown Central School District.

Holy Mary Zaher, whose worked involved investigating the molecular basis of Parkinson’s disease, won first place in the Neuroscience Behavioral Category, earning her the distinction of heading to the International Science Fair (ISEF) to be held in May in Dallas, Texas. Zaher was also recognized as a Regeneron Scholar for her work in the Science Talent Search (STS) in January.

Jennifer Zhong, also an East senior, was awarded second place in the Animal Science Category for her work investigating hypoxia using a zebrafish animal model. Jolene Cao, a sophomore, engineered a rewritable paper using a PDMS polymer.

The team of juniors Jessica Penna and Sanjivani Singh, as well as sophomore Anagh Gupta, received honorable mentions for their work on rhizobacteria and a computer simulation of pedestrian traffic flow respectively.

"Wow, wow, wow," Maria Zeitlin, the school's science research coordinator, stated via news release. "Once again, I am proud of the incredible work each student presented after months of dedicated work. The heart of each experiment is the ThINKing. I always say to them – now that you have the data – why should I care? From sustainable farming practices to efficient building evacuations, the students probed topics that matter."