Hackley Students Compete (and Win!) at Science Fairs

Five Hackley Juniors presented their impressive projects at two of the largest regional science and engineering fairs and won numerous accolades.

The Westchester Science and Engineering Fair (WESEF) is one of the nation’s largest regional science fairs. This year, over 550 projects were presented from 43 schools in the Westchester/Rockland region. The New York State Science and Engineering Fair (NYSSEF) is a similar, state-wide fair. Hackley School students presented at both fairs and won!

Congratulations to the following students: 

Joey Nadol ’22 presented his work on Determining the optimal detrending method to
search for single-transit long-period planets at the WESEF and the NYSSEF, winning 4th
place and 3rd place, respectively, in the Physics/Astronomy Category.

Divek Patel ’22 presented his work at the WESEF on Predicting Mutation Status and
Free Survival in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Hierarchical CT Radiomics – Deep
Learning Approach. His work won him the following prizes:
  • Expanding Knowledge in Science Award–presented to students who exhibit excitement and an enthusiasm for discovery
  • 2nd Place in the category of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
  • WESEF Finalist for Regeneron ISEF–the “Olympics” of science fairs.
Katerina Popova ’22 collaborated with Zoe Lu (junior – Thomas Jefferson High School
of Science and Technology) to present their project Refining Synthesis of Copper
Nanoparticles Formed in Situ on PLA Composites for Antimicrobial Applications. Their
work won them 3rd place in the Biochemistry category at the WESEF.

Michael Potanin ’22
presented his work on the Computational Biology of IL2RG Insertion
into a Safe Harbor Locus to treat Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID) at both fairs.
His work won 4th place in the Cellular and Molecular Biology category.

Daniel Zhang ’22 presented his work at the NYSSEF on Evaluation and Development of
Neural Network-based Methods for Improved Imputation of Missing Values in Time Series
Data.

Congratulations to all of our students for conducting such impressive scientific research and
representing Hackley at these fairs.
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