Local Students Clean-up in INTEL Competition
by Tiffany Elliott

Three talented area students made it into the semifinals of the INTEL Science Talent Search for 2007, considered by some to be the junior Nobel Prize. Out of 1,705 entrants from across the country, there were 300 semifinalists, 64 of whom were from Long Island.

One of those students, Kaitlyn Duncan of Plainedge High School is now a finalist.

Kaitlyn was named a finalist for her paper, which focused on the defeat of the budget in her school district in 2005, "Demographic and Program related Factors Affecting the Success or Failure of School Budget Referenda: a Case Study of one Long Island Community and its Values."

Duncan's paper studied which demographics determined who would turn down or approve a school budget and why- something that affected her personally as many programs were cut after the budget was turned down that year. The 17- year old plans on attending Boston College or Columbia.

Since Plainedge's entrance into the contest three years ago, there have been five winners making the district a national leader in the social science division of the competition.

"I am honored and excited to be chosen as a finalist in such a prestigious competition," said Kaitlyn. I look forward to representing Plainedge and thank everyone who helped me to make it this far."

James Patrick Devlin, another Plainedge student, made it as far as the semifinal for his paper "An Analyses of the Effects of Sleep Deprivation on High School Student Performance and Causes of Sleep Deprivation."

In addition, Farmingdale Senior Sean Michael Feiner was named a semifinalists for his research paper, "Not so Tasty: Synthesis and Crystallization of Heteroleptic Cerium Sandwich Porphyrinate." Feiner intends to attend Brown University with a double major in chemical engineering and economics.

The semifinalists will be awarded $1,000 for their hard work and will be matched and given to their school's research program.

INTEL Chairman Craig Barrett said, "For us, this talent search is a chance to play a role in discovering and encouraging scientific innovation and this year, for the first time, we're proud to say that this year's finalists are an even number of young men and women."

In March, the finalists will travel to Washington D.C. for a week long event and ten finalists will receive scholarships totaling $500,000 and a new laptop computer with the top winner receiving a $100,000 scholarship.

In photo left, Farmingdale semifinalist Sean Feiner is shown with Ms. Grady his Biology teacher, and Mr. Macchia his science research teacher.

Above, Plainedge finalist Kate Duncan is shown with Jessica Wilson, Jackie Governale, their Intel advisor Peter Rosenstein, Matt Gibney, semifinalist James Devlin and Matt Jeffreys. Wilson, Governale, and Jeffreys also submitted papers to the INTEL competition.

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