Regional science winners from Commack advance to NYS science competition

Three Commack students have been selected to present their research as regional semifinalists for the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium taking place on Feb. 11.

The Junior Science and Humanities Symposia Program is a tri-service – U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force – sponsored competition which promotes original research and experimentation in STEM at the high school level and publicly recognizes students for outstanding achievement. Students must apply to present their completed original research at the first level of the fair, held at York College. 

The three projects moving forward to compete for scholarships, recognition and a place as a regional finalist are:

Jonathan Zhang

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

Jonathan used a mathematical formula to evaluate EEG brain activity to diagnose sleep disorders in two minutes vs. 8 hours of sleep studies.

Kevin Ma

Decreased Immune Activation Drives the Differential Therapeutic Responses to Chemoradiotherapy Between HPV+ Head and Neck Cancers and HPV+ Cervical Cancers

Kevin investigated two forms of cancers to differentiate where the cancer originated and if it tied back to the HPV+ to provide individualized immunotherapy based on the type of cancer and the tumor environment. 

Mehek Sawhney

Secretion of Francisella tularensis Protein FTL_1123 from Escherichia coli Containing the HlyBD Operon

Mehek studied the structure of a certain bacteria that can be used in biological Tier 1 warfare. She investigated how  the bacteria secretes these virulent factors, and a way to prevent it from being released as a threat.

Please extend your congratulations to these students for this well-deserved and hard-earned recognition, and also to the Research team of Jeanette Collette, Daniel Kramer, and Andrea Beatty.