A look at some of LI's Intel semifinalists

Norman Cao, Kendra Cornejo, Sharon Varghese

Brentwood school district

Three students from Brentwood were named Intel semifinalists, marking a record for the district and its five-year-old research program.

"This is a dream come true," said science research teacher Rebecca Grella. "These students dedicated not only their summer months but all of their after-school time to the research lab."

Brentwood's only other semifinalist was named in 1995, when Westinghouse was the competition sponsor.

Sharon Varghese, 17, spent months trying to find out how an invasive plant species - Centaurea nigrescens (Tyrol knapweed), with its green leaves and purple petals - came to the United States. Her findings: from Italy and Switzerland, possibly carried by travelers.

"It's everywhere in Brentwood," Varghese said. "It chokes out a lot of the other plants that we have here."

She said research like hers can help predict when invasions might occur, allowing scientists to prepare for the arrival of nonnative species.

Norman Cao said his project has both military and civilian applications; he created an algorithm to help unmanned vehicles find or capture their targets.

"It's like a giant game of freeze tag," said Cao, 17.

Kendra Cornejo's project focused on the lineage of the same plant invading Varghese's neighborhood, and determined it was not placed in the proper family tree.

Cornejo - who conducted a similar project with bats as a junior - studied the plant on the molecular level. She said she loves science, but hasn't yet picked a major.

"I am sure college will guide me as to where I need to be," said Cornejo, 17.

Marni Wasserman

Commack High School

Marni Wasserman couldn't believe her eyes when she first saw Phineas Pemberton's 250-year-old handwritten log books.

The records - 40 years' worth of precious climate data - were in nearly perfect condition, the curl of every letter as clear as the day it was written by the Philadelphia colonist.

Wasserman, 17, used the data for her own modern-day climate study - "The Development of a System to Analyze and Compare Colonial Era Weather Data to More Modern Data to Investigate Climate Change" - and concluded that the temperature increase she observed from the 1700s until now is statistically significant.

"I thought it was really cool that I had access to something so old and that was in such good condition," Wasserman said. "It's so vital to what is happening right now. It was . . . so precise, so accurate."

Brian Chen

Roslyn High School

Brian Chen wanted to know whether a student's race makes a difference in his or her grades.

So he asked 171 prospective teachers at Hofstra University to assess one piece of work from a student identified as either white, black or Asian, or whose race was not revealed.

The results, he said, were heartening. He found that ethnicity largely doesn't affect teacher perceptions, which, Chen said, "is kind of surprising, considering past research."

He said he asked the teachers about the student's intelligence and future academic achievement.

Chen identified just one disparity.

"I did find that Asian-Americans were seen as more intelligent than the control students whose ethnicity isn't mentioned," he said.

Michelle Hackman

Great Neck North High School

Michelle Hackman was sitting with friends one day when she realized everyone was texting each other on cell phones rather than talking.

This helped inspire Hackman's research, which measured the reactions of students separated from their cell phones. Hackman found such students showed definite understimulation, or boredom.

"Once it's gone, you don't even know how to entertain yourself anymore," the 17-year-old observed.

For her research, Hackman had to convince 150 teens at Great Neck North to submit to an hour of testing. Blind since childhood, Hackman also did much of her research with the aid of computer software that translates written text into speech.

Still, those who know Hackman are not surprised at her ability to capture classmates' attention. "She has a very engaging personality," said Alan Schorn, 52, the high school's science research teacher. - JOHN HILDEBRAND

Edward Vargas

Herricks High School

Edward Vargas doesn't remember how old he was when his mother, a psychiatrist, first started talking to him about bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

"It was in the first grade, maybe younger," he said.

Vargas wasn't scared about what he heard, only interested in how such diseases developed.

"I understood that it was all part of a pathology and I realized that many people suffered because of this," he said.

Vargas' Intel project focused on whether analysis of the shape of the brain can help identify mental disorders. After examining two-dimensional brain images, the 17-year-old concluded that such analyses are effective.

He plans to become either a physicist or a neuroscientist.