One Intel Finalist and Three Semi-Finalists Worked on Their Projects at BNL

February 2, 2009

Four high school students who worked on their science projects at BNL have been recognized in the Intel Science Talent Search competition.

Christine Lee Shrock of Ward Melville High School was named a finalist. Shrock's mentor was Carlos Simmerling, a BNL guest scientist from Stony Brook University who works at the NY Blue supercomputer at Brookhaven. The three semi-finalists were Andrew Cohen from Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School, whose BNL mentor is Tom Butcher, Energy Sciences & Technology Department; Seth Fichtelberg from Kings Park High School, whose mentors are Scott Bronson, Office of Educational Programs, and William Sherman, Center for Functional Nanomaterials; and Glen Meyerowitz from Northport High School, who is mentored by Helio Takai of the Physics Department.

Christine Lee Shrock came to BNL through a Stony Brook University program. For her project in bioinformatics and genomics, Shrock built computer models to carry out molecular dynamics simulations in studying the protein MDM2 and its effect on tumor suppression. She specifically focused on MDM2's effect on p53, an important tumor-suppressing protein. To conduct her experiment, Shrock used 3 million node hours on the NY Blue supercomputer. NY Blue is the centerpiece of the New York Center for Computational Sciences, a cooperative effort between BNL and Stony Brook University. Shrock hopes to attend Harvard or Princeton.

Andrew Cohen came to BNL through the High School Research Program, coordinated through the Lab's Office of Educational Programs. The title of his project is "Preliminary Studies of Ethyl Levulinate: a Non Food-Source Biofuel." Cohen was interested in biofuel storage and came to BNL mentor Tom Butcher with a large binder filled with copies of key papers and reports he had collected. Cohen decided to focus his project on Ethyl Levulinate, a biofuel that may be interesting for the future. "Andrew was very motivated," said Butcher. "While he was at BNL he made a few presentations on his work to visitors. He did a great job and I think he is on the path of a great scientific career."

Seth Fichtelberg also came to BNL through the High School Research Program. The title of his project was "Modeling and Sequencing the Elements of a Bent Linear DNA Array." Fichtelberg was the first high school student to do research at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, which became fully operational in March 2008. Under the direction of mentors Scott Bronson and William Sherman, Fichtelberg worked fulltime at Brookhaven last summer. He continues to work a few hours a week during the school year to build the structures he designed. The goal of his project was to find an easy way to make large, structurally complex nanostructures using a minimal number of unique strands of DNA.

Glen Meyerowitz came to the Lab through a Stony Brook University Program and has been working with his BNL mentor, Helio Takai, for two summers. His topic for the Intel contest was "Uncovering Elusive Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays: Development of a Method to Detect Cosmic Rays," which involves a new technique being explored to detect very high-energy cosmic rays. Meyerowitz has been accepted at both Caltech and the University of Chicago, but he has not yet decided where he will go for his degree.

The students' teachers are enthusiastic about BNL's educational programs. For example, Jane Schoch, a teacher at Kings Park High School said, "We feel fortunate to have educational resources like Brookhaven available to our students and hope that students can continue to participate in the research opportunities offered there for many years to come."

Congratulations to all the winners and their mentors!

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