Chaimowitz is captain of Mepham’s varsity tennis team, president of the national and Spanish honor societies, a member of the English, history, math and science honor societies, senior class secretary and a member of the badminton team.

She will attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall to study biology.

Connor Garet, 17

North Bellmore

Garet, Mepham’s 2013 valedictorian, undertook a study of epilepsy patients at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research at North Shore University Hospital. She examined brain-wave analyses of epilepsy sufferers, obtained by hooking up electrodes to the brain and testing patients over the course of a week. Such analyses are critical to doctors trying to pinpoint the origin of seizures in the brain, so that dysfunctional tissue can be removed and seizures can be reduced.

Garet explored whether it was possible to obtain accurate readings of brain-wave activity using five-minute snippets of electrode analysis rather than a full week’s worth of data. If that was possible, a patient would not have to spend a week in bed, immobile, while an electrode analysis was conducted.

He concluded that it is, in fact, possible to get accurate readings in five-minute segments, compared with a week’s worth of data.

Garet is on Mepham’s varsity wrestling team, is co-president of the Students Against Destructive Decisions Club and is a member of the national, math, science and Spanish honor societies. He is also a peer tutor and plays guitar.

He said he hopes to attend Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Duke or the University of Virginia.

Masooma Kazmi, 17

North Bellmore

Kazmi conducted her research on her own, without the aid of a university mentor. She undertook a behavioral sciences study, surveying 97 of her Mepham peers to determine whether they respond better to visual or written cues.

She showed study participants photographs of a man holding a horse’s head. The horse had just lost a race. Then she asked participants to read a plainly written description of the man and the horse, without giving context. Finally, she asked them to answer a series of questions about what they had just seen and read.