Two Sachem high school science research students excelled in their respective concentrations over the summer as they furthered their research initiatives at Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory.
 
Angelina Franqueiro, a fourth-year science research student from Sachem High School North, was accepted into the 2017 High School Summer Program at Stony Brook University’s Garcia Center for Polymers at Engineered Interfaces. Angelina has been performing cutting-edge research on understanding the differences in rigidity between normal cells and cancer cells, a focus presented in her paper, “Nano Mechanical Properties of Breast Ductal Carcinoma MDA-MB-231, MDA-MB-4175, MCF-7” and “Normal Breast Ductal Cells MCF-10A and their Extracellular Matrices.” She has delved deeply into the subject by investigating the biophysical properties of living cells utilizing atomic force microscopy. 

Daniel Waxman, a fourth-year science research student from Sachem High School East, was accepted into the 2017 High School Research Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Daniel’s concentration in particle physics allowed him to utilize the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the laboratory. His work over the summer was centered on programming computers to identify the particles that resulted as products from the collisions within the ion collider. The title of Daniel’s work is “STAR Particle Identification using Machine Learning Algorithms,” and this study contributes toward a better understanding of particle physics.

Both students will enter their research projects in the 2017 Siemens Competition for Math, Science and Technology. Daniel also plans to enter his work in the upcoming Regeneron Science Talent Search, formally known as the Intel Science Talent Search.