20 local students are Regeneron Science scholars

Twenty students from a dozen high schools in the Lower Hudson Valley found out Wednesday that years of research, experiments and internships had paid off, as they were picked as semifinalists in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, a prestigious national competition formerly known as the Intel Science Talent Search.

These aren't potato clock science experiments. Projects included analysis of water contamination, wind turbines, human languages and games of chess. Each project went through a judging process before being selected by the Society for Science & the Public and Regeneron, which took over for Intel last year.

With more than 1,700 applicants, the 20 local students are part of 300 semifinalists, known now as "Top Scholars," chosen for their innovative research.

STS: Regeneron takes over Intel science competition

The top 40 finalists will be announced Jan. 24. They will receive an all-expenses paid trip to Washington, D.C. from March 9-15, to compete for $1.8 million in awards, including a $250,000 top prize.

Melanie Porras, a senior at Hendrick Hudson High School, studied artificial photosynthesis as a way to make solar panels more efficient. She was on vacation in Colombia when she found out she was a semifinalist, and she said her family didn't believe the news at first.

"When I first saw the email I thought it was just chain mail from Science Talent Search," Porras said. "When I showed my sister and parents, they thought it wasn't real. It wasn't until I saw my name on the scholars list online that it finally sunk in."

Porras, 17, was one of two finalists from Hendrick Hudson. Byram Hills, Ossining and Edgemont led all Lower Hudson Valley high schools with three semifinalists each. Last year, there were 27 semifinalists from 12 schools.

Most of the students chose a topic to develop in their schools' science research programs, beginning their sophomore year. Porras said she sacrificed her summer breaks and sometimes stayed at school into the night to work on her project.

"The countless hours I spent in the summer — I mean countless; I would sometimes spend 9-hour days in the lab — was all worth it when I saw that email," she said.

Semifinalists receive $2,000 and their school gets an additional $2,000 grant per student.

Here's the full list of the Top Scholars from Westchester, and their projects:

Byram Hills High School

• Yasamin Sophia Bayley: "Species-specific Responses of Coccolithophores’ Growth Rates and Calcification to Various Light Intensities: A Comparative Study of the Species Emiliania huxleyi and Coccolithus pelagicus"
• Isabelle Chong: "Using an Inertial Navigation System and a Laser Range Finder to Create a Novel Electronic Navigational Aid for the Blind"
• Audrey Saltzman: "Swift XRT and UVOT Investigation of Low-mass X-ray Binary 1RXS J180408.9-342058"

Dobbs Ferry High School

• Blake Hord: "High Mass Planet Spiral Shocks as a Source of Infrared Emission from Protoplanetary Disks"

Edgemont High School

• Alexander Spassimirov Paskov: New Frontiers in Toxicogenomics Based on Fused Regularization and Rank Restricted Machine Learning
• Stefano Freitas Andrade Rozental: Language Lateralization Using Electroencephalography
• Jocelyn Hallie Wexler: Laparoscopic Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass Versus Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy for the Resolution of Obesity-Related Comorbidities: A New Method of Comparison

Hendrick Hudson High School

• Jonathan H. Chung: Interaction of Circulating Gut Microbiota-generated Metabolites with the Function and Expression of SLC6A3, the Dopamine Transporter
• Melanie Porras: Analyzing the Role of Chlorophyll a, b, and d in Oxygenic Photosynthesis

John Jay High School

• DeeAnn Guo: Lucid Dreaming: Its Electrophysiological Correlates and Induction Through Multiple Awakenings

Mamaroneck High School

• Andrew Absher Katz: "Implementation of Active and Passive Defenses on an Open Source, Raspberry Pi-based Home Automation Gateway/Internet of Things Device"

Masters School

• Mingyu Li: "Defluoridation Study of High Fluorine Drinking Water by Activated Alumina Oxide Modified by Ferric Sulfate"

Ossining High School

• Celine Xin Huan Khoo: "Training Nonnative Speech Contrasts: An Examination of English Vowel Contrast Discrimination for Adolescent Native Spanish Speakers"
• Reid Langford Komosa: "Tributary Detection as the Basis for Intra-estuarial Juvenile American Eel Recruitment Disparities in the Hudson River"
• Adriana Alexandra Scanteianu: "Predicting Protein Turnover Using Genome-Scale Protein-to-mRNA Concentration Ratios"

Pleasantville High School

• Ana Claire Malfa: "Inhibition of the Notch Signaling Pathway Prevents Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma Disease Progression"

Scarsdale High School

• Dexin Li: "Decision-Making, Misperceptions, and Gender: Chess Players and How They Take Risks"
• Lauren Hallie Singer: "Transient Visual Evoked Potentials as a Novel Biomarker for Autism and Phelan-McDermid Syndrome"

Somers High School

• Mark Christopher Worsley: "Bio-Inspired Airfoil Modifications and Their Effect on Noise and Sound Production of Wind Turbines"

White Plains High School

• Shelley Zhu: "Assessing Schwann Cell Biology in vitro to Assess Its Potential for Brain Hemorrhage Cell Transplantation Therapy"