Westchester Whiz Kids Chosen as Intel Finalists

Three Westchester students are among the 40 finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search 2016.

They were picked from among 300 semi-finalists, who each received a $1,000 award from the Intel Foundation with an additional $1,000 going to his or her school. More than two dozen students from the lower Hudson Valley were recognized at that level.

In all, the prestigious contest had 1,750 entrants from 512 high schools in 43 states, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C. and six overseas high schools.

Katharine Berman of Hastings-on-Hudson is one. Her project is on the effects of calreticulin mutations on pathogenesis of myeloproliferative neoplasms.

Ossining High School senior Soon Il Higashino’s project is “Species Richness of Cutaneous Bacteria Varies with Urbanization: Implications of the Effects of Habitat Conditions on Defense Mechanisms of Plethodon Cinereus.”

Amphibians are on the decline worldwide, and one of the reasons is fungi that grows on their skin. Soon il has researched whether types of bacteria found on the skin of salamanders can prevent fungi from growing. She identified several species of bacteria that could be used as a conservation strategy for protecting these declining salamander species.

Yorktown High School senior Andrew Amini’s research topic is “Automatic Seizure Onset and Severity Prediction with a Single, Strategically-placed, Bipolar Electroencephalogram.”

He says he became interested in the topic because of an aunt who had seizures and he hoped to find a way to better predict when these would happen.

The Intel competition is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious pre-college science and math competition which is intended to encourage students to tackle challenging scientific questions and create technologies and solutions that will impact people’s lives.

Finalists receive an all-expenses-paid trip March 10-16 to Washington, D.C., where they will compete for more than $1 million in awards.

Ossining High School had more semifinalists than any other high school in New York in 2016, and this was the second time the district had eight semifinalists in a single year.

The Yorktown Science Research department has 19 seniors this year all doing graduate level research. This year there were three semi-finalists. In 2004, a semi- finalist moved on to the finalist stage.

PHOTO: Soon Il Higashino, Andrew Amini/contributed