Each year for the past 30 years, the most outstanding high school seniors with the best research projects in New York come together at the state capital on the campus of The State University at Albany to compete for two prestigious spots to represent our State at the National Junior Science Symposium. In this annual event, the most promising young scientists in the United States present their research to professional scientists for numerous cash awards and scholarships. Impressively, for the third year in a row an Ossining senior finished in first place. This year, Juliet Ivanov earned the top prize and will lead the New York delegation to this prestigious competition. Also in an unprecedented occurrence, another student from Ossining, Elizabeth Keeley, who placed 2nd, overall in Albany, will join Juliet at the Nationals. This marks the first time that the two New York student representatives will be from the same school. Adding to this outstanding showing was Christopher Gallego, who also earned a trip to “The Nationals” as a student observer by winning the Biomedical Sciences competition and finishing in fifth place overall in the competition.

The local selection process to choose the best in New York began on February 7, 2015 at Westchester/Rockland Junior Science Humanities Symposium held at John Jay High School. Over 400 students from 34 High Schools competed in the event. Ossining students earned eight first place awards and therefore it is not surprising that this dominant performance continued to the State level. Angelo Piccirillo, one of the two science research teachers from Ossining is quick to point out that Ossining has outstanding research students who are dedicated to making a difference. The fact that these students shine among so many bright young scientists from numerous other schools make these results even more gratifying.

The outstanding effort by the students of the Ossining research program was augmented by several other impressive research projects whose merit was recognized at the NYS Junior Science & Humanities Symposium:

Tess Halpern- 2nd place in Behavioral Sciences

Charles Gulian-2nd place in Physical Sciences

Stephanie Becker- 3rd place in Biomedical Sciences

Ariel Kanevsky- 3rd place in Physical Sciences

David Leibert- 4th place in Behavioral Sciences

Rebecca Hannan- 4th place in Biomedical Sciences

Valerie Holmes, who co-teaches the Ossining High School Science Research Program, credits the consistent success of the Ossining Science research students to the collaboration that exists between the all the teachers, mentors and staff of Ossining High School along with parental support. Our philosophy is simply to nourish an environment that puts all our students in the best position possible to succeed and then it is up to them to take advantage of the opportunity.