Their future is starting here

A pair of Five Towns students who share a career goal have been named two of the 300 semifinalists in Intel’s Science Talent Search 2011.

Abraham Killanin, an Inwood resident and a Lawrence High School senior, and Nathan Akhavan, a senior at Rambam Mesivta of Lawrence, were chosen from 1,744 applicants across the country.

Both students entered the competition with the encouragement of Rebecca Isseroff, a science teacher at Lawrence High School, Rambam Mesivta and the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaways. Akhavan said he thought that his project had a good chance of winning the prestigious competition. “It never hurts to try,” he said.

Contestants must submit a 20-page report on their research project. Isseroff, a teacher in Lawrence since 1994, said she tells students who enter the competition that no matter how they finish, their prize is that they did such high-level research. “I hope they took away how to do research, write a paper, make a deadline and work throughout the night,” Isseroff said of Akhavan and Killanin. “Because you have to work hard to accomplish anything in life.”

Akhavan, a Plainview resident, is the captain of the Rambam hockey team, a student council vice president, a member of the mock trial team and the math team and plays soccer as well. After graduation, he said, he plans to spend a year in Israel. “My brother is in Israel right now,” he said. “It’s a tradition in my family because you become independent by being on your own.”

When he returns, Akhavan wants to pursue his dream of being a doctor, but he is not sure which college to attend. “Wherever I get accepted,” he said.

Killanin has been the president of his class since eighth grade. He is also president of the National Honor Society at Lawrence and is involved in the drama club. He would not reveal his college choice, but he, too, wants to be a doctor — specifically, a pediatric neurosurgeon.

“I’ve wanted to be a doctor since I got acquainted with science and it became a big thing in my life,” said Killanin, who was also named a semifinalist in the 2010 Siemens Foundation Competition in Math, Science & Technology with the same project he entered in the Intel competition. “And my dad has been calling me ‘doctor’ since I was 3.”

The research

Akhavan’s project was a continuation of one undertaken last year by Paul Masih Das of Lawrence High, using a photovoltaic solar cell to capture a limitless amount of energy and attempting to turn it into usable electricity. Akhavan used organic polymers for his project since they have less environmental impact and are cost-effective, light and flexible. He aimed to increase the efficiency of electricity capture by incorporating graphene oxide. His results, he said, proved that the solar cell utilized the graphene oxide and increased voltage production.

Masih Das, who is now a freshman at Johns Hopkins University, worked with Akhavan on his project at SUNY-Stony Brook’s summer research program. “He worked on the project for practically the whole summer, so the award is well deserved,” Masih Das said. “I gave him little hints about what the judges like to see when they read the paper, and I think that helped him out.”

Both Akhavan and Killanin attended Stony Brook’s summer research program, and lived down the hall from each other in the dorm.

For his project, Killanin incubated platinum and gold nanoparticles with dental pulp stem cells from teeth. Nanoparticle therapies attack rapidly dividing cancer cells, but Killanin wanted to find out whether they also harm hastily dividing adult stem cells. His results showed that while the platinum nanoparticles decreased cell growth, cells with gold particles reproduced.

Miriam Rafailovich, a professor in the Material Science and Engineering Department at Stony Brook, worked with both Akhavan and Killanin during the summer program, which, she explained, allows high school students to experience research firsthand. “It’s important for high school students to be exposed to science because they’re at the stage in their life where they’re deciding what they want to do for the rest of their life,” Rafailovich said. “And anybody can contribute to research if they’re passionate and smart.”

Both students said that their respective schools have excellent teachers like Isseroff, from whom they learned a lot and who prepared them for the Intel competition and the world beyond. “There are so many opportunities at this school,” Killanin said of Lawrence. “Not everyone takes advantage of the opportunities here, and that’s a mind and future wasted. I was lucky enough to have the knowledge to take advantage of those opportunities like A.P. classes, research community service and advising. The future starts here.”

Killanin’s and Akhavan’s future could change even more on Jan. 26, when 40 of the 300 semifinalists will be named finalists and receive all-expenses-paid trips to Washington, D.C., to compete for more than $630,000 in prizes. Each finalist will receive at least $7,500, and the winner will receive $100,000.