By Jeff Lipton
Despite facing stiff competition, Yisrael Herzberg and Yonatan Schwab, seniors at Rambam Mesivta High School in Lawrence, exuded confidence last Friday afternoon, moments before they presented their project to the judges of the 2004-05 Siemens Westinghouse competition in math, science and technology.
Their confidence paid off big time. They won the Middle States regional finals of the prestigious science research competition for high school students, a two-day event at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Herzberg and Schwab captured the silver medal in the team category, and will split a $6,000 college scholarship for their research, which involved making nanoparticles from the element palladium, with the ultimate goal of producing an energy source that does not pollute the atmosphere. Contrary to accepted theory, they found that palladium nanoparticles are highly magnetic.
They were among five students from Long Island high schools who were named finalists. Rambam Mesivta won $2,000 for the project. Herzberg and Schwab now advance to the national finals at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., Dec. 3-6, to compete for a $100,000 grand prize. They will go against five other teams from across the country. Six others will compete in individual competition.
"We congratulate these exceptional students on their outstanding achievement," said Thomas N. McCausland, chairman of the board of the Siemens Foundation, which launched the annual competition in 1998 to recognize America's best and brightest students in math, science and technology.
In a phone interview less than an hour before making their presentation last Friday afternoon, the two Rambam Mesivta students said they were more than prepared for the grueling competition. "It's very exciting," said Schwab, of Flushing, Queens, after he and Herzberg, a resident of Woodmere, set up their poster explaining their project. "We have been very busy preparing for our presentation."
Schwab said they were "pleasantly surprised" to make it this far, "but we feel confident."
Herzberg added, "It was unexpected, but we're very excited to be here. It's a very big competition and it's an honor to be here. It's a very impressive field, but we feel confident, because we know our project very well."
Rambam Mesivta is the only boys' yeshiva high school in the country with students who were named to the regional finals. Schwab and Herzberg were selected out of more than 1,200 students who registered for the competition nationwide.
They worked together on their project, entitled "Synthesis and Characterization of Highly Uniform Palladium Nanoparticles." Palladium nanoparticles, which are about 1/600th the width of a human hair, are of interest because of their catalytic properties and affinity for hydrogen. "We hope they can be used to decompose toxic gases for use in gas masks and air filters," said Schwab.
Dr. Mark Skrowronski, professor of materials science at Carnegie Mellon, said, "This project contributed to the rapidly developing field of nanotechnology that has a number of important implications for everyday life."
The lead judge, Dr. Stephen Garoff, said, "Nanotechnology is a key research thrust in the U.S. This team's thoroughness is truly stunning for young people. Any one of the sophisticated techniques they used takes a long time to learn - they did five to six!"
Marie Gentile, a Siemens Westinghouse spokeswoman, said that to make it to the regional finals was a great accomplishment for the Rambam Mesivta students. "These are actually the best," she said. "To me these are all very impressive projects. I'm just always amazed by it, and every year the judges are more and more impressed."
Gentile said that many of the students who compete in the competition will go on to Harvard and MIT, with others attending Princeton, Yale and other Ivy League schools, and many will pursue careers in research and engineering.
Schwab, 17, is captain of the Rambam Mesivta college bowl team and editor in chief of his synagogue's newsletter. He plans to study chemistry or biology in college.
Herzberg, also 17, is council treasurer of his senior class at Rambam Mesivta. He is an avid basketball and chess player, and would like to be a Talmudic scholar.
The students conducted their research over the summer, under the direction of Rebecca Isseroff, AP chemistry teacher at Rambam Mesivta, and Prof. Miriam Rafailovich, Ph.D., director of SUNY-Stony Brook's Garcia Center for Polymers and Engineered Interfaces, part of the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center program of the National Science Foundation.
As committed Torah Jews, one of the key concerns Herzberg and Schwab had was to make sure they continued their Torah learning over the summer while doing their research. When they approached Rambam Mesivta's dean, Rabbi Zev Meir Friedman, he offered to help them via long-distance phone from New Hampshire, while on vacation with his family.
The regional finals took place over the course of three weekends in November. Entries were judged at the regional level by esteemed scientists and faculty from six leading research universities, which also host the regional competitions: Carnegie Mellon (Middle States); Notre Dame (Midwest); the University of California (West); MIT (New England); Georgia Tech (South); and the University of Texas (Southwest).
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