Lynbrook students submit Intel research papers
Ten seniors in the Lynbrook High School Science Research program submitted research project reports to the Intel Science Talent Search, the nation’s most prestigious science research competition for high school seniors. Semifinalists will be announced on January 11, 2012.
Over the past 12 years, Lynbrook High School has had seven semifinalists named. Ilana Ajzenman, Dylan Ander, Johanna Ben-Ami, Harrison Ezratty, Casey Frankel, Alyssa Glanzer, Rachel Licciardi, Alex Marcus, Maggie Rouder and Laura Zweifler all hope to be among the next to join this select group. Under the guidance of research teacher David Shanker, all of these students began developing background information, reviewing literature and reading professional journal articles in their junior year, and completed their research and wrote their project reports this year. They explored such varied topics as neurogenesis, genetics, bullying, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, thermoelectricity, cell phone addiction, nutritional awareness and tooth development. Ilana developed her research under the mentorship of Dr. Dimitris Placantonakis at Chao Lab at NYU Medical Center. Laura traveled to the University of Washington in Seattle to work with Dr. Martha Somerman and Dr. Brian Foster. The rest of this year’s entrants developed their projects right in the Lynbrook High School science labs.
“The main emphasis of our program is to teach students to do research on a professional level,” said Mr. Shanker. “Many of our past students have gone on to earn MDs and PhDs, and to pursue research careers.”
