MHS Student Named Siemens Semifinalist

Millburn High School senior Rachel Okrent has been named a semifinalist in this year’s Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology for her work in combating one of the most common forms of lung cancer. 

She is one of 300 semifinalists in this year’s competition that had an unprecedented 1,541 projects submitted. 

Okrent’s project studies the effect of using a combination of two FDA-approved drugs on cells and mice to fight the disease more efficiently. 

She has been working in concert with her mentor Dr. Goutham Naria, assistant professor of Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. 

Okrent is a student of Dr. Paul Gilmore in the Millburn High School Science Research course, a three-year program that begins in the sophomore year, and is designed to offer students an opportunity to perform scientific research and participate in the community of science research and scholarship as part of their high school experience. 

After identifying a research topic, and obtaining a mentor at an outside university or research lab, students must write a 20-page scientific paper and enter their research into local, state and/or national competitions. 

“Because this competition focuses on the “hard” sciences, and does not pull from as large a field as some of the other well-known science competitions, it is an impressive feat to make it to the semi-finalist round, especially in a year with a record number of entries,” Gilmore said. 

The Siemens Competition is the nation’s leading original research competition in math, science and technology for high school students. 

It is administered annually by the College Board, and awards college scholarships ranging from $1,000 to $100,000 in individual and team categories. 

An all-time record 2,436 students registered to enter the 2011-12 Siemens Competition for an unprecedented 1,541 projects submitted.