5 Jericho High School Students Named Regeneron Semifinalists

JERICHO, NY — More than three dozen students from across Long Island were named semifinalists, or Scholars, in the prestigious 2023 Regeneron Science Talent Search.

The Society for Science announced the 300 Scholars on Tuesday, and 38 of them were from Long Island. Jericho High School has five of those students, the most of any school on Long Island, after Syosset, which has six.

The 300 Scholars were selected from the 1,949 student-scientists who entered the competition. They were chosen based on their research, leadership skills, community involvement, commitment to academics, creativity in asking scientific questions and promise as STEM leaders demonstrated through the submission of their original, independent research projects, essays and recommendations.

“The enthusiasm and quality of projects from this year’s participants were just outstanding," said Maya Ajmera, president and CEO of the Society for Science and publisher of Science News.

"Each year, I am tremendously impressed by the ingenuity that the students bring to the competition. Their hard work, creativity and perseverance should be applauded.”For being named Scholars, each student will receive $2,000, and their schools will receive $2,000 for each of them.

The Science Talent Search will name 40 finalists, chosen from among the 300 Scholars, on Jan. 24. Those finalists will then go on to compete for more than $1.8 million in awards during a week-long competition in Washington, D.C. from March 9-15.

The Scholars from Jericho High School, and their projects, are:

• Emily Kim: The Dual Roles of Activated Carbon as an Adsorbent and Photocatalyst for Azo Dye Removal
• Natalia Pahlavan: Bidirectional 12-Lead Electrocardiogram and Electrogram Reconstruction Using a Cycle Generative Adversarial Network
• Rhea Sakaria: Identifying a Potent Wnt Compound To Enhance Stemness Post-Radiation Through Activating the Canonical Wnt Signaling Pathway
• Nikhil Trepeta: Decreased Levels of TSP-2 Results in Under-Activation of the Wnt/β-Catenin Pathway and Alters Gene Expression in NIH-3T3 Cell Lines
• Kevin Zhu: Recurrent Repeat Contractions and Micro-Changing Short Tandem Repeats: Investigating Underrepresented Factors of Polymorphism in Human Cancers

To see the full list of Scholars from Long Island, read the full story here.