Thursday, October 1, 2026
Sacred Heart Academy junior Sameera Rampertab will take part in an academic discussion typically reserved for college-level researchers when she presents her work at an American Sociological Association conference in New York City on Aug. 8.
The 17-year-old Valley Stream resident has been invited to present her paper, “The BAS Model: Analyzing the Impact of Excessive Social Media Usage on the Mental Health and Neurologic Reward System of Female Adolescents,” during Roundtable 9: Social Media and Digital Culture. The session will bring together undergraduate and graduate students to discuss research related to social media and its effects on society.
For Rampertab, the opportunity represents a chance to share her work with a broader academic audience while participating in a professional research setting that is uncommon for high school students.
“I’m not completely sure if they know that I’m a high school student,” Rampertab said. “They just looked at the quality of my project and accepted me, as far as I know.”
The conference serves as a forum for sociologists, researchers and students to share findings, discuss emerging topics and connect with others in their fields. Participants attend presentations, exchange ideas and build professional relationships with scholars who share similar research interests.
Rampertab originally planned to present a poster, a format she had become familiar with through previous research experiences. However, after learning that student poster sessions were not part of this year’s program, she submitted her work for consideration in a roundtable discussion and was accepted.
Her project examines the relationship between social media use, anxiety and sleep among female adolescents. Through what she calls the BAS Model, focusing on biology, anxiety and sleep. Rampertab sought to address what she viewed as a gap in existing research.
“Previous studies looking at this have only studied psychology in females, like interviews and surveys, and have only studied biometrics, like heart rate, eye tracking and beta waves in adults,” Rampertab said. “I wanted to bridge this gap and do both psychometrics and biometrics in female adolescents.”
One aspect of the invitation that stood out to Rampertab was the listing of Sacred Heart Academy as one of the participating institutions. After reviewing conference materials, she found that her school appeared to be the only high school represented.
“I’m really happy I’ll be the only high school student there to represent my school, because my school has just given me so much,” Rampertab said. “I’m really grateful to Dr. [Stephen] Sullivan and Dr. [Beth] Feinman for all that they’ve given me.”
That distinction highlights the unusual nature of her participation. The conference is primarily attended by college students, graduate researchers and professional sociologists, making the inclusion of a high school researcher particularly noteworthy.
For Sullivan, Rampertab’s acceptance reflects both the quality of her research and her determination to pursue opportunities beyond those typically available to high school students.
High school students rarely present as primary authors at conferences of this caliber, according to Sullivan. While younger students sometimes participate in research connected to universities or family members working in academia, he noted that Rampertab is the lead author of her project and earned the opportunity through the strength of her work.
He described her as a student who consistently seeks out new challenges and develops the skills necessary to meet them.
“She’s very creative, very scientific and very thorough,” Sullivan said. “When she doesn’t know how to do something, she acknowledges that she doesn’t know how to do it. She finds resources, whether it’s a person or a place, and she’s not afraid to ask for help.”
Her growth over the past several years has been particularly notable to Sullivan. He said she entered Sacred Heart’s research program as a motivated student with strong ideas but gradually developed into a confident and polished presenter through repeated experience conducting and discussing research.
Beyond her own accomplishments, Rampertab has become a positive influence on younger students. Sullivan described her as someone who regularly encourages those following behind her and who understands the importance of creating opportunities for future student researchers.
Rampertab hopes her experience will inspire younger students at Sacred Heart Academy in the same way she was inspired by older students who presented research at professional conferences before her. She views participation in events like the upcoming conference as part of a broader tradition of students supporting and encouraging one another.
The conference will also provide an opportunity to engage directly with researchers whose work overlaps with her own interests. Rampertab has already been reviewing the work of other presenters and is eager to learn from students studying topics related to anxiety, social media and neurological processes.
Even as she prepares for the August presentation, Rampertab continues to build on her research. She plans to expand the sleep component of her study by collecting additional data to further examine the relationship between social media use before bedtime and sleep quality.
“She’s got this really wonderful project that has gotten her an invitation to a major conference, and she’s already talking about what she’s going to do next and how she’s going to make it better,” Sullivan said. “There’s this notion of not being satisfied with excellence. It’s kind of cool.”
