26 Westchester Students Named Regeneron Scholars

Editor's Note: Elena Prisament from Ossining High School was named a Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholar. Project Title: Novel Annotations in Machine Translation Facilitate Language Acquisition: A Proof-of-Concept Study. Her name was omitted in the original version of this report. Patch regrets the error.

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — The top 300 scholars in the Regeneron Science Talent Search 2024, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors, were announced Wednesday by the Society for Science — and 26 of them are from Westchester County.

The 300 scholars will be awarded $2,000 each and their schools will be awarded $2,000 for each enrolled scholar.

“Congratulations to the Regeneron Science Talent Search 2024 scholars, whose exceptional projects demonstrate their ability to use science to improve the world,” said Christina Chan, Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs at Regeneron, the global biotech giant based in the Hudson Valley. “In partnership with the Society, we are proud to provide this prestigious national platform that recognizes, celebrates, and rewards students for their curiosity and innovation and encourages them to push the boundaries of science to tackle society’s most pressing issues.”

The Regeneron Science Talent Search scholars were selected from 2,162 entrants from 712 high schools across 46 states, Puerto Rico and 10 other countries – the highest number of entrants since 1969 and an increase of over 200 from 2023.

On Jan. 24, 40 of them will be named Regeneron Science Talent Search finalists. The finalists will then compete for more than $1.8 million in awards during a week-long competition in Washington, D.C. March 6-13.

Scholars were chosen based on their outstanding research, leadership skills, community involvement, commitment to academics, creativity in asking scientific questions and demonstration of exceptional promise as leaders in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) through original, independent research projects, essays, and recommendations.

The 300 scholars hail from 196 American and international high schools in 36 states and China. Locally, they include:

Lily Anchin, 17, Byram Hills High School, Armonk NY. Project Title: Investigating the Immunophenotypic Differences Among T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Patients of Distinct Subtype, Sex and Race in Efforts To Improve Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell Therapy

Justin Baldassarre, 18, Hastings High School, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY. Project Title: STING-Rich Ciliated Cells Protect the Fallopian Tube From Early Transformation in the Development of Ovarian Cancer

Anwen Cao, 17, Horace Greeley High School, Chappaqua, NY. Project Title: An Exploration of mTOR in Epstein-Barr Virus: Evaluating the Effect of EBV Deubiquitinating Enzyme BPLF1 on mTOR Complex 1 and 2

Thomas Cong, 17, Ossining High School, NY. Project Title: Overlooked Covariates in Metabolite Abundance Levels: Systematically Quantifying the Information Overlap Between Gene Expression and Metabolism Across Multiple Cancer Types

Aiden Fel, 17, Ossining High School, NY. Project Title: Deficiency of Tetrahydrobiopterin Impairs Cognition in Alzheimer’s Disease and in Mild Cognitive Impairment

Jacob Goldman-Wetzler, 17, Hastings High School, NY. Project Title: Investigating the Impact of Optimal Flashcard Creation Principles on Memory

Gautam Gupta, 17, Briarcliff High School, NY. Project Title: Predicting Future Internal Migration Patterns Within the United States Resulting From Shifts in Temperature and Precipitation

Isabella Jabbour, 17, Edgemont High School, NY. Project Title: Insights Into Cellular Senescence: p16 and p21 Dynamics in Healthy Aging Spinal Cord Tissues

Rania Khan, 18, Charles E. Gorton High School, Yonkers, NY. Project Title: Combined Sewer Overflow Neutralizing Agent Sodium Hypochlorite (NaOCl) Ramifications on the Vitality of the Tetraselmis Population Within the Hudson River

Kevin Khitrov, 17, Ardsley High School, NY. Project Title: Autophagy in Non-Cell Autonomous Regulation of Adipogenesis

Lucia Marie Lammers, Age: 17, Harrison High School, NY. Project Title: Colorimetric and Spectroscopic Analysis of Textiles Dyed With Local Invasive Plants Species and Waste-Derived Mordants

Benjamin Max Levy, Age: 17, Byram Hills High School, NY. Project Title: Using Machine Learning To Uncover Hidden Linguistic Differences Within Online Mental Health Disclosures Between Men and Women

Jiahe Liu, Age: 17, Edgemont High School, NY. Project Title: Forecasting Post-Wildfire Vegetation Recovery in California Using a Convolutional Long Short-Term Memory Tensor Regression Network

Jonathan M. Manowitz, Age: 17, Byram Hills High School, NY. Project Title: The Use of What Remains: Repurposing Harvest Waste From Romaine Lettuce Cultivation for Cell-Based Meat Production

Rashmi Rajeev Narayanan, Age: 17, Briarcliff High School, NY. Project Title: Understanding Pathological Structures of Pyroglutamate Modified Amyloid-β (Aβ) in Alzheimer’s Disease

Daniel Ndocaj, Age: 17, Byram Hills High School, NY. Project Title: Investigating the Potential of Optically Tunable Metasurfaces for Enhanced Detection of Fluorescent Molecules

Stella Margaret Goldman Perini, Age: 17, Harrison High School, NY. Project Title: Protective Effects of Resveratrol Following Repetitive Head Injury in Wild Type and Amyloid β42 Drosophila melanogaster

Elena Prisament, 18, Ossining High School, NY. Project Title: Novel Annotations in Machine Translation Facilitate Language Acquisition: A Proof-of-Concept Study

Anabel Reed, Age: 17, Ossining High School, NY. Project Title: Musical Training Decreases Cognitive Workload During Hearing-in-Noise Tasks Among Adolescents

Aadita Roy, Age: 17, Pelham Memorial High School, NY. Project Title: Pro-Inflammatory Macrophages Induce Pyroptotic Death of β-Cell; Modeling Macrophage-Mediated Pancreatic Endocrine β-Cell Damage Using Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Vascularized Macrophage-Islet Organoids

Shae R. Shandroff, Age: 17, Ossining High School, NY. Project Title: The Short- and Long-Term Migratory Patterns of Young-of-Year Shortfin Mako Sharks (Isurus oxyrinchus) in the Western North Atlantic With Implications for a Localized Nursery Area

Noah Gabriel Sodickson, Age: 17, Mamaroneck High School, NY. Project Title: In Search of Decay: An Analysis of the Transit Times of Hot Jupiters

Eric Ruike Song, Age: 17, Yorktown High School, NY. Project Title: A Framework for Ransomware Detection and Mitigation

Edmund Tsou, Age: 17, Briarcliff High School, NY. Project Title: Language Models as Catalysts in EEG-Based BCI Speller Systems: A Low-Cost Solution for Paralyzed Patients

Joseph Jai Weitzen, Age: 18, Sleepy Hollow High School, NY. Project Title: Discovery and Validation of Tumor-Specific and Tumor-Associated HLA-Presented Peptides in Glioblastoma for Use in Immunotherapeutics

Christopher Zorn, Age: 17, Irvington High School, NY. Project Title: The Role of MYC in RET Fusion Tumorigenesis and RET Inhibitor Resistance

“Congratulations to the top 300 scholars in this year’s Regeneron Science Talent Search,” said Maya Ajmera, President and CEO, Society for Science and Executive Publisher, Science News. “We received a record-breaking number of applications this year; interest in this prestigious competition is at an all-time high. I am truly impressed by the quality of the projects and the ingenuity that each student brings to the competition. Their diligence, passion, and perseverance should be celebrated.”

The full list of scholars can be viewed here.