Three of the high school students recognized by the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search pursued their projects in Weill Cornell labs.
Vinod Nambudiri
Vinod Nambudiri won sixth place overall (first among all students from New York) and earned a $25,000 scholarship. A student at Blind Brook High School in Rye Brook, N.Y., Vinod worked with Dr. Scott Campbell, professor of psychology in psychiatry, and Dr. Patricia Murphy, assistant professor of psychiatry in psychology, in the chronobiology lab at the Westchester Division. He studied the effects of extraocular light on sleeping teenagers ("Alteration of Sleep and Daytime Cognitive Performance in Adolescents as a Result of Nocturnal Extraocular Light Exposure"). His project won the top prize in the competition's behavioral and social sciences category.
Dmitriy Aronov, a student at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, earned a $5,000 scholarship as one of the 40 finalists. He researched the electrical activity of the nervous system in the lab of Dr. Jonathan Victor, professor of neurology and neuroscience. His project title was "Metric Space Analysis of Multi-Channel Spike Sequences."
Dmitriy Aronov
Rick Siriratsivawong was a semifinalist, receiving an award for $1,000. Also from Stuyvesant High School, Rick did neuroscience research in the lab of Dr. Ping Zhou, assistant professor of neuroscience, and the late Dr. Donald Reis, the George C. Cotzias Distinguished Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience. His project title was "Electrical Stimulation of the Cerebellar Fastigial Nucleus Protects Rat Brain From Staurosporine Induced Apoptosis In Vitro."
Of 1,592 students who submitted projects for the competition, 300 were selected as semifinalists. Of those, 40 were selected as finalists. The top 10 finalists won scholarships ranging from $100,000 to $20,000. All other finalists won scholarships of $5,000.