Nassau School Notebook: Long Island winners in health science competition
Anushka Gupta of Great Neck North High School was named a first-place winner in this year's Neurological Surgery P.C. Health Science Competition. Credit: Center for Science Teaching and Learning
Five Long Island students were first-place winners in a local health science competition that awarded $82,000 in prize money.
The 2nd Annual Neurological Surgery P.C. Health Science Competition attracted more than 280 students from 37 high schools across the Island. It was held virtually this year because of to the coronavirus outbreak.
Participants created websites featuring presentations of their research, experimentation and testing — along with videos explaining their work — in one of five categories: behavioral sciences, biology (medicine/health), biology (microbiology/genetics), health-related biochemistry/biophysics, and bioengineering and computational biology.
First-place winners and their high schools were: Anushka Gupta, Great Neck North; Suchir Misra, Jericho; Tiffany Guo, Paul D. Schreiber; Lianna Friedman, Roslyn; and Chelsea Pan, Ward Melville. First-place projects won $5,500.
Second-place winners were: Alice Chen, Jericho; Mary Sotiryadis, North Shore; Yonatan Khakshoor and Menachem Rabizadeh, North Shore Hebrew Academy; and Alida Pahlevan, Jacob Ramsey and William Xu, Roslyn. Second-place projects won $4,000.
Third-place winners were: Emily Gan, Fahad Karim and Marguerite Li, Jericho; Keaton Danseglio, North Shore; and Kreena Totala, Plainview-Old Bethpage JFK. Third-place projects won $3,000.
The competition was managed by the Rockville Centre-based Center for Science Teaching and Learning.
Chelsea Pan of Ward Melville High School in East Setauket was named a first-place winner in this year's Neurological Surgery P.C. Health Science Competition. Credit: Center for Science Teaching and Learning
LEVITTOWN
Essay winners
Wisdom Lane Middle School eighth-grader Alex Gao placed first, while eighth-grader Dylan Muterspaw and seventh-grader Ashley Wilson placed second and third in the grade levels, respectively, in the Long Island section of an essay contest sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' Space Systems Technical Committee.
This year's contest asked students to submit 1,000-word essays on the question: "How advanced can you envision space technology and exploration through the next 50 years and what do we need to do now to achieve that?"
The students received $600 between them, with Gao and Wilson's essays advancing to the national level for a chance to be recognized in the institute's International Aerospace America magazine.
COUNTYWIDE
History Day
Forty Nassau County students placed first or second in their categories at the New York History Day Contest, held virtually after initially being canceled because of the coronavirus outbreak, and advanced last month to the National History Day Contest.
Tiffany Guo of Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington was named a first-place winner in this year's Neurological Surgery P.C. Health Science Competition. Credit: Center for Science Teaching and Learning
Nassau students who advanced to the national level and their school districts were: Gia Chadha, East Meadow; Manav Bansal, Maahir Kasilwal, Emma Melnikov and Emma Rosenberg, East Williston; Aveena Desai, Karan Kaknia, Gurvir Singh, David Xiang and David Zhang, Herricks; Kira Grossman, Madeline Heyman, Michael Heyman, Harley Honig, Madison Honig, Sydney Honig and Julia Klayman, Hewlett-Woodmere; and Kaitlyn Choi, Sarah Cohon, Alexa Coven, Stephanie Hsu, Catherine Kim, Emily Kim, Noha Myreen, Khushi Patel, Rebecca Perlman, Brendan Shek, Jessica Weissman and Naomi Yu, Jericho. Other advancers were Nadav Chelst, Sherry Garber, Rachel Hirt, Eitan Katz, Esther Mizrahi, Ethan Muchnick, Zachary Rabe, Keren Schiowitz, Eliana Shemesh, Talia Traube and Allie Weiss of Hebrew Academy of Long Beach.
At the national level, Choi placed second in the junior individual website category.
COUNTYWIDE
George Farber Awards
Fifteen students were winners of Nassau BOCES' George Farber Outstanding Student Award for their "talent, commitment, honesty, diligence, compassion and high moral standards," the organization said.
Winners and their school districts were: Emily Castillo and Shiyann Shuford, Baldwin; Jacqueline Edwards, Bellmore-Merrick; Ricardo Candido, East Meadow; John O'Meara, Farmingdale; Barbara and Wayne Reddick, Hempstead; Bianca Duffer-Bajana, Hewlett-Woodmere; Charles Douglas, Malverne; Thomas Camisa, Massapequa; and Kerrington Boards, Jefferson Guaman-Pina and Julian Picardal, Westbury. Other winners were adult students Salvatore Costanza of Massapequa and Colleen DiLello of Garden City Park and a student from the Hempstead School District.
— MICHAEL R. EBERT
Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.
