By EVAN NEMEROFF
Now, two years later, District 14 has 15 Siemens semifinalists, the most of any school in the country.
"It's beyond my expectations to see things going this well," Bisoondial said. "Sometimes, I think it's only an illusion. I never imagined to do this well at such a fast pace. We already have 15 more kids ready for next year."
The Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology recognizes remarkable high school students who are willing to challenge themselves through science research. Through this competition, administered by The College Board and funded by the Siemens Foundation, students have an opportunity to achieve national recognition for science research projects that they complete in high school.
Out of 1893 students registered in the Siemens Competition this year, with a total of 1205 projects submitted, Hewlett High School ended up with the most total honorees with 15. They included seniors Meryl Natow and Ali Berman; juniors Justin Remer, Jay Vitha, Morgan Beller, Eric Brooks, Frances Grinfeld, Ariq Azad, Daniel Bailin, Solomon Husain, Patrick Brazil, Andrew Chambers, and Zachary Feuer; and sophomores Rachel Marc and Dorothy Fan.
These students participated in a two-year class at the high school with Dr. Bisoondial, learning techniques for the projects, working on them, developing the experiment, and writing a required 20-page paper. All of the projects centered on unraveling the molecular biology of an emerging model organism, Ceratopteris richardii, which is a fern.
To help fund the projects, Hewlett High School received a $5,000 grant from Toshiba America Foundation. "I wrote a proposal to Toshiba characterizing the fern to try to get the grant," Bisoondial said. "It was important to get the money to be able to bring research to the high school. Away from the school, it is tough for students to gather a broad picture and do the research themselves."
Every student agreed that it was a great accomplishment to receive this honor after dedicating so much time to their projects. "It's a huge honor to be named a semifinalist for the Siemens [Competition]," Beller said. "We all have worked so hard on this, and it's rewarding to get something back for everything we have done."
Fan, who worked on a project entitled, "The Isolation and Characterization of a Novel Myb Transcription Factor in Ceratopteris richardii" with Berman and Marc agreed. "We hoped to be named semifinalists for our work, but weren't really expecting it," she said. "It really is an honor and we are all excited."
Feuer, who worked on a project entitled "Richardii by a GT2-like Transcription Factor" with Chambers and Brazil thinks winning an award like this can only mean good things for his future. "This award is a great honor for all of us because colleges look at it," he said. "We worked hard and always enjoyed ourselves during the project."
Many of the students attribute their success on the project to Dr. Bisoondial. "Dr. B[isoondial] was amazing the entire time working on the project," Marc said. "Dr. Bisoondial is a good mentor. He guided us and told us when things were not good, which needed to be fixed. He was helping us through everything and knew exactly what he was doing."
Dr. Bisoondial came up with the project ideas for the students that participated in the Siemens competition; however, they got to choose the experiment they wanted to work on. Coincidentally, five of the six projects from the class ended up being honored as semifinalists in the Siemens Competition.
All of the students discovered an immense amount during this two-year project, but enjoyed the entire learning process. "The best part of the project was seeing and analyzing the results," said Bailin, who worked on "A Novel and Functional Phytochrome without a Histidine Kinase Related Domain (HKRD) in Ceratopteris richardii" with Azad and Husain. The students demonstrated that ferns are not the dead end of evolution, as previously believed. "It was pretty amazing doing this and we all feel great being named semifinalists in this elite competition."
John Kranz, department of science chairperson at Hewlett High School, is proud of the students for all the time they put into these projects and their commitment to the competition. “It’s amazing to see the students be able to carry out this research at this age on such complex topics,” he said. “Every year, the students stretch their limits. I am very impressed with their work and commend Dr. Bisoondial for getting the best out of them and pushing them where they can maintain their dignity.”
Dr. Bisoondial simply couldn't ask for better results from his students. "By the end, the projects completed were all very good and the students did an amazing job," he said. "It is a very rigorous class and the quality of work by these students is unbelievable."
Comments on this story? ENemeroff@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 210.
