Julia and Valerie D’Amico. Photo courtesy of D’Amico family
In 2025, labels are toxic, political and problematic.
DEI? Not allowed anymore. Woke? There’s undoubtedly an executive action to rid the nation of anything that fits under this large umbrella.
Fortunately, during last week’s final stage in a contest run by Stony Brook University’s Institute for Advanced Computational Science, politics didn’t enter the room, even though women, girls, families and boys met for a science competition.
The IACS unveiled the winners in their competition a few days after the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
The competition helped over 150 local students learn about women scientists who may not be household names, but who made significant contributions to their fields.
Some of these historical role models were firsts. Mary Jackson was the first female Black engineer. Marie Curie was the first woman to earn a degree from the University of Paris.
Others made significant, and sometimes overshadowed, contributions to their fields. Rosalind Franklin, for example, provided key x-ray crystallography images that uncovered the double helical structure of DNA.
For students in the area, the competition was not only an opportunity to learn about the history of these women and the challenges they overcame, but was also a chance to conduct their experiments and present them to a receptive audience.
All the competitors were not girls. The participants, whether or not they won, appreciated the opportunity to learn and compete.
Parents of these precocious children were thrilled that this contest provided an enrichment learning opportunity, built their daughters’ confidence, and gave the next generation a sense of the myriad opportunities the sciences might present to them.
Each of these students — and some of them worked in teams — produced a one minute video explaining who the scientist was, why she was important and how they conducted their own experiment.
Some of them extracted DNA from strawberries, while others, like co-winner Allison Wong launched small objects through the air with their own miniature catapults, measuring the time marbles, cotton balls, ping pong balls and bottle caps were in the air and the distance these objects traveled.
Even amid concerns about future funding for all kinds of science and educational programs, this second annual competition was clearly a success for the competitors and a source of great satisfaction for parents, science teachers, and extended family members.
This kind of educational outreach program is exactly what every area needs, as students not only competed to win cash prizes, but also asked about future opportunities for scientific learning and advancement.
We congratulate the IACS and the co-chairs of this effort, Professors Marivi Fernandez-Serra and Monica Buggalo at Stony Brook University, for putting this great event together. We also hope that this kind of community service and outreach continues to provide necessary opportunities for personal growth.
These students expanded on the typical effort to study for a test, memorize dates or answer multiple choice or short answer questions for a class assignment. These videos took days to produce and edit.
We thank women scientists of the past for everything they did in and out of the limelight and we take great comfort in pondering a future led by the boundless enthusiasm of the competitors who are in the early stages of their own journeys.
Katie Engel submitted a video of her spinning on the ice to demonstrate the work of Emmy Noether.
*This article was updated Feb. 13 to reflect a change in the Jocelyn Bell Burnell lecture from Feb. 13 to Feb. 14 due to the weather.
By Daniel Dunaief
And the winner is … women in science!
While Stony Brook University’s Institute for Advanced Computational Science (IACS) announced the winners of its inaugural challenge to celebrate the scientific and engineering achievement of women on Feb. 7, the organizers and participants feel like they’ve already come out ahead.
The inaugural competition, which 195 students kindergarten through 12th grade in schools on Long Island entered by submitting a one-minute video, included prizes for the 13 finalists. The winner received $1,000 prize, the runner up got $750 and the third-place finisher collected $500.
Marivi Fernández-Serra
“The goal of it was to celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, while simultaneously promoting the important role that women had in science in the last century,” explained Marivi Fernández-Serra, Professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department and at the Institute for Advanced Computational Science.
In their videos, the students selected one of nine scientists that included experiments showcasing the work of these researchers by using computers or household products to demonstrate the search for dark matter, explore the laws of conservation, create homemade telescopes, simulate a volcano with lava and many more.
Fernández-Serra, who had helped with a similar effort at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Madrid, Spain, brought the idea for the competition to Mónica Bugallo, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and affiliated member of the IACSFaculty Director of the Women in Science and Engineering Honors Program, who immediately supported it.
Fernández-Serra thought the competition might attract 10 entrants in its inaugural year while Bugallo, who reached out to Long Island schools to showcase the competition, was confident local students would embrace the opportunity.
“Wait for a tsunami of participants,” Bugallo said she told Fernández-Serra, with whom she’s been a colleague and friend for years. “I was not surprised” by the contributions from the 103 teams, which included entrants from individual students and groups of as many as three students.
Bugallo, who recommended computer scientists Grace Hopper and mathematician and writer Ada Lovelace as important scientists for the competition, was impressed with the student effort.
“It was extremely tough to come up with the finalists,” said Bugallo.
Stony Brook plans to share the videos from the finalists after naming the winners.
Figure skating and conservation
One of the finalists, Katie Engel, a senior at Cold Spring Harbor High School, chose to demonstrate the work of Emmy Noether.
A German mathematician, Noether contributed to theoretical physics and abstract algebra. A theorem named after her, the Noether Theorem, explains that any continuous symmetry in a system has an associated conservation law. That helps explain how the speed of someone spinning in a chair changes depending on how far their arms re-extended.
Mónica Bugallo
An ice skater since she was six who is also interested in studying computer science or engineering, Engel had never heard of Noether but was intrigued with the physics and with the person who helped discover ways to characterize it.
In her entry, Engel explained the mathematical principals on a white board and then recorded a video of herself spinning on ice. When she learned about Noether’s life, Engel discovered that Noether was an important contributor to her field, despite some resistance to her work from men. “Reading about her stories is really inspiring,” said Engel.
Engel is stunned at the conclusions Noether reached with the tools at her disposal.
Currently working as an intern for Peter Koo at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Engel suggested she is committed to pursuing her interest in science, technology, engineering and math fields during and after college.
Engel was also a member of the robotics team at Cold Spring Harbor High School that won the regional conference and went to the World Championships in Houston last year. In robotics, Engel said the number of girls on the team declined from 10th through 12th grades.
She is, however, heartened to learn that 180 boys and 200 girls attended a recent research fair at her school.
New teaching tools
Fernández-Serra and Bugallo are hoping that teachers at all levels can use the videos to inspire students and help them connect with scientists whose contributions continue to resonate with current researchers. The purpose of activities like the competition is to “spark interest, so students want to investigate more,” said Bugallo.
Stony Brook plans to build on this experience in future years through either similar efforts or ongoing programs or initiatives. “Our intent was to have these challenges year after year if this was successful, and it obviously was,” said Bugallo.
In the immediate future, Fernández-Serra encourages students in the area to attend the upcoming talks given by University of Oxford astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who discovered the pulsar, as a part of the Della Pietra lecture series at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics on Stony Brook University’s West Campus from February 13 through Feb. 15.
Bell Burnell is giving a general public lecture on Feb. 14 at 5 p.m., with a reception at 4:15 p.m. in the Simons Center Lobby. The lecture will also be livestreamed at scgp.stonybrook.edu/live.
Bell Burnell will also offer a special talk for high school students titled You Are Made of Star Stuff! on Feb. 15 at 11 a.m. that examines how and where elements in the human body were created in the cosmos. Both lectures will be held in the Della Pietra Family Auditorium (room 103).
A curiosity outside the classroom
For scientists, what they learn and study often stays with them long after they finish an assignment or submit or publish a paper.
Fernández-Serra, who studies the fundamental properties of liquid water using quantum mechanical simulations, thinks about how amazing water atoms are that are holding her when she swims.
As for Engel, thoughts of Noether will stay with her when she figure skates. “I probably can’t do a spin without thinking about her,” she said.
Heroes with staying power
For Fernández-Serra, Mildred Dresselhaus, one of the celebrated scientists of the past who was a part of the contest, was a “number one hero” in condensed matter physics.
Called the “Queen of Carbon,” Dresselhaus earned numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Science and Engineering.
“She was a positive and brilliant scientist who never lost her enthusiasm and curiosity,” Fernández-Serra explained.
Stony Brook’s IACS team hopes this competition, the Bell Burnell lecture, and other efforts ignite such enthusiasm in the next generation of STEM students.
