Five Scarsdale Students Recognized in the Regeneron Science Talent Search

Five Scarsdale students were named scholars in the 2017 Regeneron Science Talent Search (formerly the Intel Science Competition) on January 4, 2017. The students were among 300 scholars who were selected from more than 1,700 entrants on the basis "of their exceptional scientific promise, excellent academic record and outstanding recommendations from teachers."

This is Regeneron's first year of sponsorship and they have doubled the monetary awards. Each of the 300 scholars will receive $2,000 with an additional $2,000 granted to their schools. On January 24th, 40 students from the 300 scholars will be selected for an all-expense paid trip to Washington D.C. during which they will interact with leading scientists and present their research and compete for $1.8 million in awards, including a top award of $250,000.

Commenting on the news, Scarsdale High School's Lauren Singer said, "I feel honored to be selected as a Regeneron STS semifinalist and very grateful to my science research teachers at SHS--Mr. Szerlip, Ms. Estersohn, Mr. Prendergast, Ms. Pisano, and Ms. Schoenbrun--and to my mentors at the Seaver Autism Center at Mount Sinai Hospital."

"The goal of my research is to find a biomarker that can diagnose autism during infancy. Right now, diagnoses are made based on behavioral observations at around 2 years old. Earlier diagnosis is critical because early intervention is highly effective in helping children with autism gain valuable skills. My project used a non-invasive EEG-based technique called transient visual evoked potential (tVEP) to examine excitatory and inhibitory neural signaling in the brains of typically-developing children, children with autism, and children with a subtype of autism called Phelan-McDermid Syndrome. We found differences in the childrens' brain signaling patterns and we think these may become the basis of a novel biomarker."

"I became interested in autism research because my older sister Jodie has autism."

Dexin Li said, "I was incredibly surprised and honored to be named a Regeneron Scholar--I still can barely believe it! I still have to keep in mind, though, that the other students in the science research program as well as I worked extremely hard these past three years because we wanted to learn from the grueling process of science research and not solely for these awards. We've all learned so much, so we are all winners, with or without awards like these!"

Here is a description of her research:
Making use of a quite unusual field and set of data, this research investigates particular risk-taking strategies used in the game of chess and interprets why those strategies are chosen in certain scenarios and across genders. In an analysis of a chess dataset with 9999 games, players were found to incorrectly perceive low and high probabilities, which supports key decision-making principles. Previous explanations of gender differences attribute discrepancies in success to the more competitive and risk-seeking nature of men. This research provides novel evidence which questions previous research by showing that though men are more risk-seeking than women, risk-seeking does not always lead to greater success. Furthermore, men were found to incorrectly perceive probabilities more than women, suggesting that men are playing less rationally than women. Finally, this research provides a basis that promotes chess in future decision-making and gender difference research and offers ideas to decrease the gender gap.

Here are the names of the local student scholars:

Edgemont High School

Paskov, Alexander Spassimirov, age 17: New Frontiers in Toxicogenomics Based on Fused Regularization and Rank Restricted Machine Learning

Rozental, Stefano Freitas Andrade, age 17: Language Lateralization Using Electroencephalography

Wexler, Jocelyn Hallie, 17, age 17: Laparoscopic Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass Versus Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy for the Resolution of Obesity-Related Comorbidities: A New Method of Comparison

Scarsdale High School

Li, Dexin, age 17, Decision-Making, Misperceptions, and Gender: Chess Players and How They Take Risks

Singer, Lauren Hallie, age 17: Transient Visual Evoked Potentials as a Novel Biomarker for Autism and Phelan-McDermid Syndrome