CSF - Connecticut Science Fair

Greetings from Cleveland - home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Cleveland Browns and Indians, but most importantly the 2003 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Our students Lisa Glukhovsky of New Milford High School, Anna-Katrina Shedletsky of Brewster High School, Joia Ramcahndani of Greenwich High School, Emily Cersonsky of Sacred Heart Academy, Hamden, and Alex Mittal of Greenwich High School are proudly representing the Connecticut Science Fair at this exciting event.

Before arriving in Cleveland, family joined the Connecticut Delegation for a lunch at Bradley Airport. We shared interesting stories, learned more about each other, and discussed exciting events to come. We said our goodbyes to parents with hugs and smiles. Arriving in Cleveland we made our way to our hotel, which is directly adjacent to the Key Tower - the tallest (800+ feet) building in town. We shared a great Italian family-style dinner - with, in typical Italian tradition, entirely too much food. Our students anxiously packed the leftovers to bring back to the hotel, and I've been told that one of the room coffee pots will never be the same after it had been used to reheat the food!

This morning, after sending Mother's Day wishes to all of our parents we had brunch, took a trolley ride and really began to question if Cleveland was more deserving of the slogan WINDY CITY than Chicago. Most certainly sailing or flying a kite in this environment would lead to some tragic result!

We checked into the Fair this afternoon, getting our credentials and then proceeding to the massive convention center floor. We expect over 1000 student with 700+ projects to be here. We determined our locations and followed the complicated set up regulations. The students carefully assembled their magnificent posters and made small edits and corrections. Each student was successful in clearing Rules and Regulations. While setup was occurring, our students took the opportunity to meet and greet other students from around the world. One of the great ISEF traditions is to exchange pins and Emily in particular went full throttle perhaps making the greatest collection of new pins for herself. Everyone agrees that the best pin was from the Peru delegation, which features a woman and man in traditional clothing.

We retired for the evening at the hotel over pizza and soda, excitedly discussing our day and future plans.

We will report again tomorrow to let you know of our progress. The next five newsletters will include a feature of each student so you can get to know these amazing young women and man.

Until then . . .

Frank LaBanca
Science Teacher, Stamford High School
for the Connecticut Science Fair

Lisa D. Glukhovsky
Junior New Milford High School, New Milford, CT
Project: A RAPID, ACCURATE METHOD OF DETERMINING THE DISTANCE TO NEAR-EARTH ASTEROIDS

Lisa was able to find the distances to Near-Earth / Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (NEAs / PHAs), using simultaneous imagery from two observatory sites separated by a long baseline distance. Lisa coordinated imaging sessions from New Milford, CT with amateur astronomers in California and high school students in Denmark and the Netherlands. Participating observatories took digital camera images of NEAs / PHAs at exactly the same second. Lisa also submitted 14 asteroid positional coordinates, obtained from images she took, to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts - 3 of which were used to confirm an asteroid discovered the day before she had imaged it. All 14 submissions were accepted and of high quality.
Knowing the orbits of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) is extremely important, because of the risks of their potential impacts with Earth. The current method of NEO orbit determination often requires weeks of submitted observations before it has a useful accuracy. However, because this project s method of distance determination is accurate and rapid, it could be used in quickly refining the orbits of NEOs - especially of newly discovered NEOs.

Biography:
Lisa is a junior at New Milford High School in New Milford, Connecticut, where she is a member of the National Honor Society and treasurer of the French Honor Society. She loves mathematics, and participates in the NMHS Math Team, New England Math League, and American High School Math Exam. She has been named a Governor s Scholar of Connecticut for 2003 and received other awards for her academics and writing. Lisa also greatly enjoys music; she has been playing the piano for nine years and the violin for seven years. She is the concertmistress of the NMHS orchestra and first violinist in the school musicals pit orchestras. Lisa volunteers in the community as well, and is actively involved at Temple Sholom in New Milford, where she is the senior youth group president and a Sunday school teacher. Lisa received numerous awards for this year s science project, including overall winner of Science Horizons Fair, first-place winner of Science Horizons Symposium, and first runner-up at Connecticut Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (CT-JSHS). She is thrilled to be participating in the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado and the Intel ISEF, both to be held in May 2003.

Emily Cersonsky
Senior, Sacred Heart Academy, Hamdem
Project: The Role of HSP-27 in the Protection of Na, K-ATPase during Sublethal Ischemic Injury and Subsequent Recovery

Emily's project concerns the apparent protection that a small protein (HSP-27) lends to an important transport protein (Na, K-ATPase) during energy-depletion in porcine kidney lining-cells. HSP-27 seems to decrease the amount of Na, K-ATPase deactivated during energy-depletion, an observation which shows the small protein to have strong implications for use during shorter periods of renal injury.

Biography: Emily Cersonsky is a senior at Sacred Heart Academy in Hamden, CT. She loves just about everything, including science (especially biotechnology and genetics), English literature (yay T.S. Eliot!), scenic design, varsity lacrosse, drama production, acting, volunteering at her church, running, and singing off-key. Most of all, she enjoys sleeping! Emily looks forward to majoring in biochemistry and English next year at Boston College, which she will attend under a Presidential Scholarship.

Alex Mital
Senior, Greenwich High School
Project: A NOVEL APPROACH FOR DETERMINING NUCLEIC ACID STRUCTURE

Fifty years ago, Watson and Crick first announced their discovery of the structure of DNA, a naturally occurring nucleic acid. In Alex's project, he created a new way to experimentally determine the structure of both naturally occurring and artificially created nucleic acids. Finding the structure of newly developed nucleic acids is a very important problem in the field of structural biochemistry/biology, for there is evidence that they will allow us to selectively control the expression of genes in the body to combat and prevent disease. Knowledge of nucleic acid structure will help in the goal of using nucleic acids as a therapeutic agent.

Biography: Greenwich High School senior Alex Mittal has attended ISEF as a CT Science Fair representative for four years in a row. Last year, he earned the fair s top honor, the Intel Young Scientist Award (formerly called the Glenn T. Seaborg Award), which enabled him to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony, lectures, and related events in Sweden this past December. Alex is also a Siemens Westinghouse and Intel Science Talent Search finalist. When not working on his current science project or his concurrent project in molecular nanotechnology, Alex keeps busy as captain of the varsity cross country team, editor-in-chief of the school paper, and chair of a volunteer program that he began last year that allows high school Red Cross volunteers to tutor and mentor elementary-age students who cannot receive help at home. This summer, Alex has been invited as a US Delegate to participate in the 3rd APEC Youth Science Festival, this year in Beijing, China. In the fall, Alex will be attending the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania as well as the Wharton School of Business, pursuing a degree in engineering and a degree in economics. Alex says that he is really looking forward to rocking Cleveland this year and having a great final year at ISEF.

Anna-Katrina Shedletsky
Junior, Brewster High School, Brewster, NY

Project: I developed an original model that is able to predict how far and
fast an epidemic such as SARS will spread in a population. I discovered
"Epidemic Distributions", which describe the probability of either a devastating spread or a complete burnout of the disease. From this research I have created new strategies for combating epidemics.

Biography: Anna is a Junior who is currently enrolled in four AP classes and her third year of the Foundations of Research class. During the first two years of the class, Anna's topic of research changed many times, from space shuttle alternatives, to lasers, to protein folding disorders, and finally to epidemic modelling. Though she has always thought of herself as a science student, she enjoys writing and has been published several times. She is currently working on her first serious attempt at a novel, and serves as Coeditor of her school's literary magazine. Anna is involved in the National Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta (Math Honor Society), and Science Honor Society. She plays the violin (among other instruments), enjoys reading, and aspires to learn Quenya sometime in the future.