The Home of Midwood Science Research

Out of 130 finalists, seven students from Midwood made the NYCSEF finals and showcased their projects at the Museum of Natural History. The finalists are Mahmoud Abouelkheir '17, Allan Nosov '17, Nomon Mohammad '17, Lilin Liu '17, Vivian Luu '17, Minna Zeldin '17, and Amna Aslam '17.

According to midwoodscience.org, NYCSEF, also called the New York City Science and Engineering Fair, is a yearly competition in which hundreds of students participate in a preliminary round at City College and a final round at the Museum of Natural History. Sponsored by the Department of Education and CUNY, NYCSEF allows students to learn about a field they're interested in and get a chance to become a recognized and accomplished person, which also stands out on a college application.

Mentors at Brooklyn College, City College and the Hospital for Special Surgery supervised the finalists. They did projects in different fields, such as biology, physics, and earth and environmental science and presented them to expert judges. The winners can get various awards, internships, scholarships, and cash prizes.

One of the top projects included "Intra-microcolony spatial positioning affects antibiotic susceptibility in Neisseria gonorrhoeae," by Mahmoud Abouelkheir. He was awarded the NYCSEF First Award and the Intel ISEF award, which are the highest awards of the competition. Abouelkheir expressed his excitement, as winning an award and competing with others is something he would never forget.

"NYCSEF was a different experience that other science fairs I've been to. I also participated in the first and second round," he said. "I did not think I was going to become a finalist. It was really cool that I had one of the top projects."

Nomon Mohammad received the NYCSEF Second Award and the ASM Materials Education Foundation Award for his engineering project on studying different ways to use electrolytes to optimize energy storage in batteries. Mohammad described his experience at NYCSEF and believed that winning the award was a symbol of the hard work and he and his lab put into the project.

Vivian Luu, Amna Aslam, Nomon Mohammad, Allan Nosov,
Mahmoud Abouelkeir, Minna Zeldin, Lilin Liu

"It was interesting to see other people's projects at the competition because it really represented their scientific exploration and their effort," he said. "I hope that the research program grows in the coming years because it's something that can change one's perspective on science."

Lilin Liu was one of the students to win the NYCSEF Third Award, but also won the Brooklyn Navy Yard Award for her project testing the effectiveness of x-ray fluorescence on lead contaminated vegetables.

"Winning an award is always beneficial. Not only does it make you feel good, but it's good for college too. I also received a paid internship because of this project – it's a good opportunity and can help me achieve more in the future," she said.

Allan Nosov, another student to receive the NYCSEF Second Award, did an earth and environmental science project called "Lapse rate analysis — model versus observations." Nosov felt honored to have competed with the other students and found the event to be enjoyable.

"Competing with the other students was fun because their projects were really exceptional. It was fun because I met new people from other schools and I think it was a good educational opportunity," he said.

The top 16 projects will continue on and represent New York City at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Los Angeles, California during May 14–19. For more information on the finalists, visit nycsef.cuny.edu.

Written by Yumna Ahmed Qazi (Class of 2017).
Sara Omran (Class of 2019) and Shakila Islam (Class of 2018) also contributed to this article.
This article originally appeared in the April 2017 edition of Argus.

Students across New York City schools, private and public, were able to showcase their creativity and intelligence through their experiments in the yearly New York City Science and Engineering Fair (NYCSWEF) preliminary round, which was under way on Sunday, March 5 in City College.

“This fair ultimately isn’t about winning. It’s that you know what your talking about and a project you worked hard on is heard,” said Angel Zou ’17.

Seven hornets were accepted to participate in the finals. Mahmoud Abouelkheir ’17 and Amna Aslam ’17 in the category microbiology, Lilin Liu ’17 and Allan Nosov ’17 in the category earth and environmental sciences, Vivian Luu ’17 in the category chemistry, Nomon Mohammad ’17 in the category engineering and Minna Zeldin ’17 in the category medicine and health science qualified. The finals will take place on Tuesday, March 28 at the museum of natural history. Then, those finalists will have the opportunity of competing in nationals located in Los Angeles.

“This is an amazing chance to showcase all the hard work students put in and the broad range of topics that science covers,” said Mahmoud Abouelkheir ’17. “everyone can learn something new from this fair.”

Some projects were printed out on large posters, while others were on tri-boards. Each experiment had an introduction (background research), a hypothesis, a data, an analysis of that data, and a conclusion.

This fair had a specific judging system. Each experiment was assigned 3 judges and they asked questions based on the experiment’s methodology. Student scientists weren’t allowed to move away from their project until they were evaluated by the judges.

Mahmoud’s project was titled Intra Microcolony Spatial Positioning Affects Antibiotic Susceptibility In Neisseria Gonorrhoeae. This complex project tested the physical properties of bacteria.

“The purpose of this kind of fair is to get students involved in taking part in something big,” said Minna Zeldin ’17, “the fair allows students to present information and discoveries that might turn into something much bigger in the future.”

Minna created an experiment that tried to prove that DNA strands can move around from cell to cell in search of a specific marker that is found on cancer cells.

Angel Zou ’17 partnered with Whitney Wong ’17 created an experiment that uses microscopic water dwelling organisms called tardigrade to see how they affect E. coli.

“One can’t become a scientist without acting first. This fair gives students the opportunity to work in labs and become mini scientists,” said Angel Zou ’17.

Many people came to observe the science fair. Md Hoque ’18 and his friends were astonished by all the different, elaborate experiments. Md mainly focused on the biology section because he is currently working on a project where he uses a fungi, a yeast, to clean tap water and get rid of the pharmaceutical drugs found in it. He is trying to find a way to insert human liver enzymes into yeast and have them metabolize the drugs inside New York tap water. The goal of this project is to cleanse the water so marine species don’t die.

Hoque ’18 said, “every single project has their unique future implications, whether it’s creating a safer traveling regime for vaccines or making us age slower or even helping to find a cure cancer. Plus we are most likely going to continue our projects and aid in real world issues.”

This research competition was sponsored by the New York City Department of Education and the City University of New York (CUNY).

NYCSEF isn’t the only fair for the next generation to try to make a difference. Seniors are preparing for the next competition, Teptu STEM Research Conference, which will take place on Monday, April 3.

Written by Jonathan Krimgold and Klyve Morisseau (Class of 2018).
This article originally appeared in the March 2017 edition of Argus.

Anxious presenters stood next to their boards as they explained their projects to the public at the New York City Science and Engineering Fair on Sunday, March 1.

"Seeing all those projects were really helpful to me because I learned how the projects are being displayed and it teaches us things that can possibly benefit the world," said Matthew Chung ’16.

The New York City Science and Engineering Fair, NYCSEF, was held at City College in Hamilton Heights, Manhattan. This is known to be the largest science fair for New York high school students. Students from various high schools entered, including Brooklyn Technical High School, Edward R. Murrow High School, and Stuyvesant High School.

According to Mr. Glenn Elert, Science Research Coordinator, there were 450 projects, 578 students, and 120 became finalists. Nine of those finalists included Midwood’s Michael Divgun ’15, Tamneya Hauter ’15, Syeda HIllary ’15, Zainab Iqbal ’15, Sandra Lin ’15, Lucy Lin ’15, Monique Powell ’15, Emily Tse ’15, and Raymond Yu ’15.

Seniors in the Science Research program presented their projects in the science fair. The judges who viewed the presentations varied from Google employees to professors at universities.

"In the beginning, I was really nervous and scared, but as judges started coming and I presented to my first judge, I started to relax more," said Dina Deng ’15. "It was a fun experience because you got to see what other people researched and studied."

Mr. Elert also attended as a judge for the science fair.

"It’s like being a teacher, you’re just grading someone’s work," said Mr. Elert. "They had over 400 judges, which was the largest amount ever. There were so many judges that they ran out of judge IDs."

After the seniors were done presenting to the judges, the science fair was open for public viewing which the sophomores and juniors attended.

"I wanted them to see what the event was like before they went for real," Mr. Elert said, "Meaning going in for competing as opposed to just observing."

Michelle Do ’16 said, "It was a really nice and enriching experience because now that I know first hand what is happening, I will work on my project even more since I will be doing this same exact thing in a year from now."

Final rounds will take place at The American Museum of Natural History in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life on March 24. Experts in 14 different science and engineering fields will judge the finalists. Out of those finalists, around 20 students will be chosen to represent New York City in May at the 2015 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

"I was astounded by the news that I got into the NYCSEF finals," said Yu. "I feel honored to be selected as a finalist and am excited for the upcoming final round."

The prizes for the winners of the final round include over $4,000,000 in scholarships and awards as well as an all expenses paid trip to Pittsburgh. However, above all else, these presentations showcased the hard work and passion of the students.

Iqbal said, "I attended because I wanted to present my project and hopefully go somewhere with it. Psychology can also be very underestimated sometimes because you usually see chemistry and physics, but not a lot of psychology."

Written by Christine Ly and Amanda Kwong.
This article originally appeared in the March 2015 edition of Argus.