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Westchester Students Among 300 Semifinalists Nationwide In Prestigious Regeneron Competition

Dozens of students from New York have been named semifinalists in the country’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors.

Dozens of students from New York have been named semifinalists in the Regeneron Science Talent Search for 2024.

Dozens of students from New York have been named semifinalists in the Regeneron Science Talent Search for 2024.

Photo Credit: Canva/Polina Tankilevitch
The 2024 scholar category breakdown.

The 2024 scholar category breakdown.

Photo Credit: Society for Science

The Society for Science announced the top 300 scholars in the Regeneron Science Talent Search for 2024 on Wednesday, Jan. 10.

Participants were whittled down from 2,162 applicants from 712 high schools across 46 states, Puerto Rico, and 10 other countries.

Students were chosen based on their outstanding research, leadership skills, and community involvement, as well as a commitment to academics and creativity in asking scientific questions.

Judges also selected students who they viewed showed “exceptional promise” as leaders in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) through original, independent research projects, essays, and recommendations.

The competition – sponsored by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, based in Westchester County in Tarrytown – received a record-breaking number of applications, said Maya Ajmera, president and CEO of the Society for Science.

“I am truly impressed by the quality of the projects and the ingenuity that each student brings to the competition,” Ajmera said. “Their diligence, passion, and perseverance should be celebrated.”

Research projects ran the gamut from artificial intelligence and climate change to societal issues like teen mental health, anxiety, and suicide.

The 300 semifinalists will each receive $2,000 and their schools will be awarded $2,000 for each enrolled scholar.

On Wednesday, Jan. 24, forty students will be named as finalists. They’ll then compete for more than $1.8 million in awards during a week-long competition in Washington, DC beginning on Wednesday, March 6.

The following students from New York were named semifinalists: 

Nassau County

Rebecca Bover, age 17 - Herricks High School

Project Title: The Novel Effect of Rosuvastatin on Cholesterol 25-Hydroxylase (Ch25h) Oxysterol Metabolism and IL-6 in Response to LPS and ssRNA40 Stimulation

Alex Chen, age 17 - Syosset High School

Project Title: Evaluating the Neuroprotective Effects of Spearmint Oil in the Caenorhabditis elegans Model of Alzheimer’s Disease

Hiuyi Cheng, age 17 - Herricks High School

Project Title: Evaluating Border Associated Macrophages: A Novel Approach to Investigating Cerebral Blood Flow Dysregulation in ApoE4 Mice

Christiana Foufas, age 18 - Wellington C. Mepham High School

Project Title: Adapting to Pressure: The Bone Structure-Function Relationship in the Rabbit Talus

Benjamin Gordon, age 18 - Paul D. Schreiber High School

Project Title: Impact of Cannabinoids on Prostaglandin Synthesis in Activated Inflammatory Cells

Molly Rose Graff, age 17 - Wellington C. Mepham High School

Project Title: Think Fast: An Assessment of Cognitive Processing in Relation to Smartphone Proximity

Jacob Tyler Gross, age 17 - Roslyn High School

Project Title: Investigating Synergistic Interactions Among SARS-CoV-2 Neutralizing Antibodies

Griffin Hon, age 17 - Syosset High School

Project Title: Evaluating Differential Nutritional Regulation of Stem Cell Plasticity

Samuel Hsu, age 17 - George W. Hewlett High School

Project Title: A Matrix Metalloproteinase (MMP) Regulated by Salicylic Acid (SA) and Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) Plays an Integral Role in Prothallial Development of Gametophytes of Ceratopteris richardii

Luke Huang, age 17 - William A. Shine Great Neck South High School

Project Title: Multiscale Analysis of the Hubble Tension in an Evaluation of the ΛCDM Model

Vincent Weisi Huang, age 17 - Syosset High School

Project Title: A Smart Computer Program LauePt4 for Recognizing and Simulating Laue Patterns and Its Applications

Syon Khatter, age 18 - Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School

Project Title: Investigating Impacts of Sucralose on Hedonic Feeding Behaviors in C. elegans as a Model for Prevention and Treatment of Obesity and Eating Disorders

Brandon Kim, age 17 - William A. Shine Great Neck South High School

Project Title: Deciphering Receptor-Ligand Connectomes in Models of Lung Adenocarcinoma

Natasha Kulviwat, age 17 - Jericho Senior High School

Project Title: The Neurobiology of Suicide: Blood-Brain Barrier Breakdown as a Novel Suicide-Risk Biomarker

Brian Zhou Liu, age 17 - William A. Shine Great Neck South High School

Project Title: Evaluating the Applied Effectiveness of ECG Compression Algorithms for Myocardial Infarction Detection

Katherine Lynch, age 18 - Sacred Heart Academy

Project Title: Mindset Over Matter: Can Self-Reported Implicit Theories of Intelligence Regulate the Desire for Academic Rigor, Academic Achievement and Motivation?

Sadie Rain Muller, age 17 - Paul D. Schreiber High School

Project Title: Inside the Echo Chamber: A Closer Look at Climate Change Discourse on Twitter (X) and Political Correlates of Affective Polarization

Christina Pan, age 17 - Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School

Project Title: A Novel Application of the Fenton Reaction in the Chemical Upcycling of Polystyrene

Tej Parekh, age 17 - Paul D. Schreiber High School

Project Title: Utilizing Artificial Intelligence for Categorizing Wildfire Origins Through Satellite Image Analysis

Heemali Kalpeshkumar Patel, age 17 - Herricks High School

Project Title: Visualizing Correlational Trends Between Average Monthly Temperature and Total Monthly Precipitation With Amphibian Populations in Canadian National Parks: A Linear Regression Approach

Ankur Raghavan, age 17 - Bethpage High School

Project Title: The Reduction of Agricultural Water Consumption Through the Utilization of Wireless Sensor Arrays

Hannah Isabelle Rosenberg, age 17 - Paul D. Schreiber High School

Project Title: Christian Nationalism, Antisemitism and Attitudes Toward the War in Ukraine

Harrison Roth, age 17 - Paul D. Schreiber High School

Project Title: Quantitative Implications of Nesting in State Legislatures

Luigi J. Sartori, age 17 - Mineola High School

Project Title: A Proposed Method for Measurement of Oil Spill Bioremediation Enhancement

Claire Schwartz, age 17 - John F. Kennedy High School

Project Title: The Administration of Sulforaphane via Broccoli Sprouts Ameliorates Parkinson’s Disease Phenotypes in a Drosophila melanogaster Model

Aryan Nirav Shah, age 17 - Syosset High School

Project Title: Analyzing the Effects of Different Types of Gerrymandering on Congressional Representation Across the 2010 Redistricting Cycle

Kishan Shanmugananthan, age 17 - Herricks High School

Project Title: Investigating the MSI2 Germline Variance Effects on Clonal Hematopoiesis of Indeterminate Potential (CHIP)

Cayden Shen, age 17 - Roslyn High School

Project Title: Using an Inexpensive Night Vision Camera as a Novel Detector in NIR Spectroscopy

Samantha Ashley Stewart, age 17 - Mineola High School

Project Title: The Use of Perfluorooctyl Bromide as an Oxygen Diffsuer To Treat Chronic Lung Diseases

Helen Tang, age 18 - William A. Shine Great Neck South High School

Project Title: Impact of Unmet Social Needs on Acute and Long-Term Outcomes in COVID-19 Patients

Claire Tao, age 17 - North Shore High School

Project Title: TIGIT is Highly Expressed Across Various Types of Immunosuppressive Myeloid Cells Induced by Glioblastoma Extracellular Vesicles

Jack Voelker, age 17 - Manhasset High School

Project Title: The Effect of Anthropogenic Sound on the Reproductive Success of Tigriopus californicus

Cole Wasserman, age 18 - John F. Kennedy High School

Project Title: APC-Mediated Expansion of hPSC-Derived Natural Killer Cells

Richard Austin Wong, age 18 - Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School

Project Title: Temporal Phage Therapy: A Strategy for Managing MRSA Resistance Utilizing Bacteriophage Sb-1

Maggie Wu, age 18 - William A. Shine Great Neck South High School

Project Title: Effects of Dissolved Oxygen Levels on the Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Denitrification Performance of Woodchip Bioreactors Treating Onsite Wastewater

Alexander Yaokun Xu, age 18 - William A. Shine Great Neck South High School

Project Title: CARe-BERT: BERT-Powered Graph Augmentation for Context-Aware Radiology Report Retrieval\

Matt Yang, age 17 - Wellington C. Mepham High School

Project Title: MultiFormer: Single-Cell ATAC to RNA Prediction Framework

Michelle Yu, age 17 - North Shore High School

Project Title: Salvia hispanica L. Ameliorates the Effects of Alzheimer’s Disease in Drosophila melanogaster

Tiffany Zhang, age 17 - William A. Shine Great Neck South High School

Project Title: Resolving the Constraints Imposed by Chiral Effective Field Theory and Perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics on the Neutron Star Equation of State

Shayla Zheng, age 17 - Roslyn High School

Project Title: Cell Fusion as a Novel Mechanism Behind JQ1 Resistance in Triple Negative Breast Cancer

Suffolk County

Aidan Cazalet, age 17 - Saint Anthony’s High School

Project Title: Examination of the Effects by a Salinity and Temperature Gradient on Microcystis aeruginosa Morphology: A Keyence Fluorescence Microscope Analysis

Jessica Mary Curran, age 18 - Westhampton Beach High School

Project Title: Analyzing the Effectiveness of Dasysiphonia japonica as a Seaweed Liquid Fertilizer Through Abelmoschus esculentus Growth and Pigment Concentration

Bradley Kelton, age 18 - Ward Melville High School

Project Title: Geochronologic and Dynamic Constraints on the Topographic Evolution and Critical Mineral Deposits of the Southwestern United States

Katherine Liang, age 17 - Ward Melville High School

Project Title: Differentially Private Deep Learning in Biomedical Research

Daniela Parmigiani, age 17 - Saint Anthony’s High School

Project Title: The Optimization of the MS2/MCP-GFP Live Transcriptional Imaging Platform in Caenorhabditis elegans

Aayush Prakash, age 18 - Half Hollow Hills High School

Project Title: Understanding the Cis-Regulatory Code of Mammary Epithelial Cells

Dylan Jinhong Shen, age 17 - Smithtown High School

Project Title: A Novel Algorithm for Measuring Forest Incursions Using Pixelated Remote Sensing Data

Kemmora Simmons, age 17 - Walter G. O’Connell Copiague High School

Project Title: The Effect of the Endocrine-Disrupting Chemical Soy on the Psychological Stress Levels of Neonatal Drosophila melanogaster

Jonathan Zhang, age 18 - Commack High School

Project Title: Efficient Differentiation of Sleep-Related Hypermotor Epilepsy and REM-Sleep Behavior Disorder via Neural Aperiodic Components

Westchester County

Kevin Khitrov, age 17 - Ardsley High School

Project Title: Autophagy in Non-Cell Autonomous Regulation of Adipogenisis

Lily Anchin, age 17 - Byram Hills High School

Project Title: Investigating the Immunophenotypic Differences Among T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Patients of Distinct Subtype, Sex and Race in Efforts To Improve Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell Therapy

Justin Baldassarre, age 18 - Hastings High School

Project Title: STING-Rich Ciliated Cells Protect the Fallopian Tube From Early Transformation in the Development of Ovarian Cancer

Anwen Cao, age 17 - Horace Greeley High School

Project Title: An Exploration of mTOR in Epstein-Barr Virus: Evaluating the Effect of EBV Deubiquitinating Enzyme BPLF1 on mTOR Complex 1 and 2

Thomas Cong, age 17 - Ossining High School

Project Title: Overlooked Covariates in Metabolite Abundance Levels: Systematically Quantifying the Information Overlap Between Gene Expression and Metabolism Across Multiple Cancer Types

Aiden Fel, age 17 - Ossining High School

Project Title: Deficiency of Tetrahydrobiopterin Impairs Cognition in Alzheimer’s Disease and in Mild Cognitive Impairment

Jacob Goldman-Wetzler, age 17 - Hastings High School

Project Title: Investigating the Impact of Optimal Flashcard Creation Principles on Memory

Gautam Gupta, age 17 - Briarcliff High School

Project Title: Predicting Future Internal Migration Patterns Within the United States Resulting From Shifts in Temperature and Precipitation

Isabella Jabbour, age 17 - Edgemont High School

Project Title: Insights Into Cellular Senescence: p16 and p21 Dynamics in Healthy Aging Spinal Cord Tissues

Rania Khan, age 18 - Charles E. Gorton High School

Project Title: Combined Sewer Overflow Neutralizing Agent Sodium Hypochlorite (NaOCl) Ramifications on the Vitality of the Tetraselmis Population Within the Hudson River

Lucia Marie Lammers, age 17 - Harrison High School

Project Title: Colorimetric and Spectroscopic Analysis of Textiles Dyed With Local Invasive Plants Species and Waste-Derived Mordants

Benjamin Max Levy, age 17 - Byram Hills High School

Project Title: Using Machine Learning To Uncover Hidden Linguistic Differences Within Online Mental Health Disclosures Between Men and Women

Jiahe Liu, age 17 - Edgemont High School

Project Title: Forecasting Post-Wildfire Vegetation Recovery in California Using a Convolutional Long Short-Term Memory Tensor Regression Network

Jonathan M. Manowitz, age 17 - Byram Hills High School

Project Title: The Use of What Remains: Repurposing Harvest Waste From Romaine Lettuce Cultivation for Cell-Based Meat Production

Rashmi Rajeev Narayanan, age 17 - Briarcliff High School

Project Title: Understanding Pathological Structures of Pyroglutamate Modified Amyloid-β (Aβ) in Alzheimer’s Disease

Daniel Ndocaj, age 17 - Byram Hills High School

Project Title: Investigating the Potential of Optically Tunable Metasurfaces for Enhanced Detection of Fluorescent Molecules

Stella Margaret Goldman Perini, age 17 - Harrison High School

Project Title: Protective Effects of Resveratrol Following Repetitive Head Injury in Wild Type and Amyloid β42 Drosophila melanogaster

Elena Prisament, age 18 - Ossining High School

Project Title: Novel Annotations in Machine Translation Facilitate Language Acquisition: A Proof-of-Concept Study

Anabel Reed, age 17 - Ossining High School

Project Title: Musical Training Decreases Cognitive Workload During Hearing-in-Noise Tasks Among Adolescents

Aadita Roy, age 17 - Pelham Memorial High School

Project Title: Pro-Inflammatory Macrophages Induce Pyroptotic Death of β-Cell; Modeling Macrophage-Mediated Pancreatic Endocrine β-Cell Damage Using Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Vascularized Macrophage-Islet Organoids

Shae R. Shandroff, age 17 - Ossining High School

Project Title: The Short- and Long-Term Migratory Patterns of Young-of-Year Shortfin Mako Sharks (Isurus oxyrinchus) in the Western North Atlantic With Implications for a Localized Nursery Area

Noah Gabriel Sodickson, age 17 - Mamaroneck High School

Project Title: In Search of Decay: An Analysis of the Transit Times of Hot Jupiters

Eric Ruike Song, age 17 - Yorktown High School

Project Title: A Framework for Ransomware Detection and Mitigation

Edmund Tsou, age 17 - Briarcliff High School

Project Title: Language Models as Catalysts in EEG-Based BCI Speller Systems: A Low-Cost Solution for Paralyzed Patients

Joseph Jai Weitzen, age 18 - Sleepy Hollow High School

Project Title: Discovery and Validation of Tumor-Specific and Tumor-Associated HLA-Presented Peptides in Glioblastoma for Use in Immunotherapeutics

Christopher Zorn, age 17 - Irvington High School

Project Title: The Role of MYC in RET Fusion Tumorigenesis and RET Inhibitor Resistance

Learn more about the Regeneron Science Talent Search on the Society for Science website.

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