Calhoun junior, a Rising Latino Star

Student honored for science research

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Working quietly and diligently in her third-period Advanced Science Research class, Calhoun High School junior Samantha Hernandez looks like any other normal high school student on any other normal day. Except she’s not.

Hernandez, 16, was selected recently as one of the Hispanic Coalition of New York’s 40 Under 40 Rising Latino Stars.

“I wasn’t expecting it at all,” she said. “It’s still a surprise to me. My parents were surprised when they found out, too.”

Hernandez, who is part Salvadoran and part Dominican, is now in a three-year program in which she is studying the effects of bilingualism on the brain. The Advanced Science Research class pairs students with mentors in their fields of study. Hernandez said she became interested in the bilingualism when she came across an article that detailed how being bilingual actually allows the brain to grow. Since she speaks Spanish and English, she decided to pursue the topic and searched for the perfect mentor to guide her through her research.

“My mentor is a professor at Penn State,” she said. “She’s part of a program there that studies the effect of bilingualism on the brain and how learning different languages can affect different aspects of your life.”

Hernandez and her mentor, Dr. Judith Kroll, a professor of psychology, linguistics and women’s studies, are planning an experiment that Hernandez hopes to carry out at Calhoun in January. “I’ll hopefully be testing juniors and seniors and how their proficiency in their second language affects their word learning, so I’ll be introducing words in Dutch,” she said.

Hernandez’s research was impressive enough that her ASR teacher, Christine Boyce, nominated her for the award. “I was actually talking to someone about Samantha’s research and how it’s groundbreaking and very well thought out, and I was encouraged to nominate her for this award,” Boyce said.

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