Stony Brook University Leading Incubator of High School Talent In New York, As Well As Nation
STONY BROOK, N.Y., January 19, 2010 Thirty-four high school students who worked with Stony Brook University faculty and in Stony Brook laboratories were selected as semifinalists in the Intel Science Talent Search, the prestigious nationwide research competition. The 34 students represent 11 percent of the 300 Intel semifinalists nationwide, making Stony Brook perhaps the largest incubator of Intel talent in the country. On Long Island, this number translates into an unprecedented 56 per cent of the 61 Intel semifinalists.
The compelling numbers reinforced Stony Brook’s reputation in developing the research talents of exceptional high school students. Indeed, over the past ten years Stony Brook University has served as the host research university for approximately 271 Intel semifinalists/finalists.
The students were mentored by Stony Brook faculty from departments throughout the campus, including Anesthesiology, Biochemistry & Cell Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, Computer Science, the Dental School-Oral Biology, Ecology & Evolution, Geosciences, Materials Science & Engineering, Medicine, Neurobiology & Behavior, Pharmacological Sciences, Physics & Astronomy, Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Psychology, the School of Marine & Atmospheric Sciences, and the C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics. Ten semifinalist projects were mentored by faculty in the Department of Chemistry, including the recently announced 2009 Grand Prize winner of the Siemens Competition, Ruoyi Jiang of Ward Melville HS in E. Setauket.
The Stony Brook University advisors who mentored the students include: Dr. Josephine Aller, Dr. Stephen Baines, Dr. Bruce Brownawell, Dr. Benjamin Chu, Dr. James Dilger, Dr. Marivi Fernandez-Serra, Dr. Rita Goldstein, Dr. Nancy Hollingsworth, Dr. Benjamin Hsiao, Dr. Roy Lacey, Dr. James Lattimer, Dr. Joel Levine, Dr. Wei Lin, Dr. Donald Lindsley, Dr. Hanna Nekvasil, Dr. Iwao Ojima, Dr. Dr. Srinivas Pentyala, Dr. Yixian Qin, Dr. W. Quitschke, Dr. Miriam Rafailovich, Dr. Martin Rocek, Dr. Lorna Role, Dr. Dimitris Samaras, Dr. Arthur Samuel, Dr. Valentina Schmidt, Dr. Carlos Simmerling, Dr. Marcia Simon, Dr. Helio Takai, Dr. David Talmage and Dr. Peter Tonge,
Seven of the Intel semifinalists from Ward Melville High School were mentored at Stony Brook including: Yuval Calev (mentored by Dr. Arthur Samuel of Psychology); Conor Diviney (mentored by Dr. Peter Tonge of Chemistry); Ruoji Jiang (mentored by Dr. Carlos Simmerling of Chemistry); Andrew Li (mentored by Dr. Roy Lacey of Chemistry); Pooja Mysore (mentored by Dr. Srinivas Pentyala of Anesthesiology, Physiology & Biophysics, Urology); Rashmi Rao (mentored by Dr. Dimitris Samaras of Computer Science and Dr. Rita Goldstein of BNL) and Nimali Weerasooriva (mentored by Dr. Peter Tonge of Chemistry). A number of the Intel STS semifinalists participated in summer research programs at Stony Brook, including the Garcia Center: Polymers at Engineered Interfaces – Research Scholar Program (5), and the Simons Summer Research Program (12).
The names of the Intel semifinalist students are posted at: http://www.stonybrook.edu/simons/intel.htm.
The 40 Intel finalists will be announced on January 27th.
