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High School Long Island Science and Engineering Fair
A total of 12 science research students from North High School and South High School received awards at the 2023 Long Island Science and Engineering Fair (LISEF), held on March 7. Two projects from South High were awarded first place in their respective categories and will advance as Finalists to the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), to be held in Dallas, TX, in May.
Grand Awards
Grand Awards—first place, second place, third place, and honorable mention—are awarded to the top presenters in each of 15 research categories.
Two pairs of students from South High won first-place awards at LISEF and will advance to the ISEF in May. Luke Huang and Yida (Aiden) Pan received first place in the math, physics, and astronomy category for their project, “VaSt-ID: Novel Application for Variable Star Identification and Classification using Machine Learning.” Yifu (Evan) Zuo and Richard Xu won first place in the translational medicine category for their project, “FetA.I.: A novel fetal health classification program using soft voting with deep and ensemble learning.”
South High’s Andria Chen was awarded second place in the biomedical health category, and Dana Kagan and Amber Sun each received third-place awards in the cellular biology and biomedical engineering categories, respectively.
Five students received honorable mentions: Rena Geula, North High, behavioral and social sciences category; Addison Kelbanov, North High, cellular and molecular biology category; Shaan Merchant, South High, environmental engineering category; Amit Saha, South High, computational biology category; and Xinyi (Zoe) Zhang, South High, translational medicine category.
Special Awards
Six South High students were named as recipients of Special Awards, which are presented by various science associations, government agencies, and private companies in recognition of outstanding research in specific areas.
Shaan Merchant received an award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, for performing exemplary studies in environmental sciences. Amit Saha, Yifu (Evan) Zuo, and Richard Xu received awards from the U.S. Navy & Marine Corps, Office of Naval Research, in recognition of their high-achieving projects. Luke Huang and Yida (Aiden) Pan received an award from the U.S. Air Force for achievement in aerospace and technology-related fields.
Great Neck’s high school science research programs are led by advisors Christopher Bambino, Alison Widawsky, and Jessica York at North High, and advisors Nicole Spinelli and Dr. James Truglio at South High.
The Long Island Science and Engineering Fair (LISEF) is a competition for the most advanced high school projects and gives students the opportunity to present to professionals in their subject areas from local universities, scientific institutions, and professionals in the field.