Smithtown HS West Student Finalist In National STEM Competition

SMITHTOWN, NY — Sudarshan Padmanaban, a senior at Smithtown High School West, was named a finalist in the National STEM Challenge, the school district announced.

Of the 280 finalists in the national competition, Padmanaban is one of five from Long Island. His work focused on the relationship between poor air quality and the transmission of coronavirus viral particles. Padmanaban studied the number of people that tested positive for COVID-19 in the United States' most polluted cities after periods of particularly bad air quality and found that more people tested positive under these conditions.

Padmanaban’s work shows that air quality is another factor that is related to the transmission of viral particles.