for her original research paper entitled: "The Effect of Unsaturated Fatty Acid Esters on the Stability of Pre corneal Tear Film Lipid Layer in Meibomian Gland Dysfunction Patients." Her research, which she developed during a summer internship at Columbia University's Engineering Lab, could help us better understand the disease-forming mechanism of a type of dry eye disease commonly referred to as MGD. At 16, she is the youngest Semifinalist from New York State and one of the three youngest in the country. The district's Science Research program has produced three other Intel Semifinalists since 2001, all of them young women.
Better know to her classmates as JJ, Jing emigrated here in the fall of 2006 from a small town in the Hubei province of China. Within six months she had qualified for the Nassau County All-Star Mathematics team, which placed second in the state in 2007 and third in the state in 2008. She is the first-chair cellist in her high school orchestra and has competed at NYSSMA festivals in both cello and guitar. She also plays the guzheng, a traditional Chinese instrument similar to the harp. Fittingly, she is the founder and president of her school's Chinese Club. In addition, she is an award-winning writer for her school newspaper. Jing has her sights set on attending Princeton or MIT in the fall, and hopes to study chemical engineering, because she says, "it's the most challenging major offered."
A total of 11 seniors at Lynbrook High School submitted research project reports to this year's Intel competition. This is the district's highest number of entrants for a single year. Jing's fellow seniors, Kristen Brocavich, Emma Brofsky, Joshua Colfin, Abraham Fine, Lindsay Gus, Jing Jian, Alexa Kahn, Lindsey Klein, Chloe Mercedes, Kimberly Shao, and Amanda Tannor, were their school's other entrants.
The Intel competition is the country's oldest and most highly regarded pre college science fair, often referred to as the "Junior Nobel Prize." As a Semifinalist, Jing was awarded a $1000 prize. An additional $1000 was awarded to her school. On Jan. 28, 40 of the 300 Semifinalists will be named as Finalists and receive an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C. for a week-long event in March, during which they will compete for a grand prize of $100,000.
