Bethpage High School senior Aurrel Bhatia has been recognized as a Regeneron Science Talent Search 2022 Scholar. The prestigious honor is also a landmark for the school, as Bhatia is the second Bethpage student to achieve this recognition since the inception of the school’s science research program in 2011.
“It was just incredibly exciting when I found out,” Bhatia said. “To be second person in this district is especially meaningful, because I think it carries signs of progress and I think it’s a great step towards the right direction in our district.”
(Photo courtesy of the Bethpage Union Free School District)
According to its website, the Regeneron STS (formerly the Intel STS) is a program of the Society for Science and the Public that recognizes and empowers the most promising young scientists in the U.S. who are creating the ideas and solutions to solve the most urgent challenges. This program is the nation’s oldest and most prestigious pre-college science competition for high school students. Each of the 300 scholars received a $2,000 award from Regeneron with a matching donation to his or her school.
Scholars were selected from 1,805 applications received from 603 high schools across 46 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and eight other countries. Scholars were chosen based on their exceptional research skills, commitment to academics, innovative thinking and promise as scientists and hail from 185 American and international high schools and home schools in 37 states, China, Switzerland and Singapore.
“The Regeneron is an incredibly prestigious competition, so I’m very lucky to be a part of the group of people who have this designation,” Bhatia said.
Bhatia said she spent most of her freshman and sophomore years studying machine-learning and deep-learning algorithms and applied them to study climate. Through her research, she discovered that there are roughly 850 million people worldwide who suffer from food insecurity. She realized that while there is enough food for everyone in the world, she believes that the systems in place are not productive enough. Bhatia felt that current irrigation systems are inaccurate, so she sought to create a soil moisture prediction system and implement that into a decision support system. Bhatia submitted her project, “Utilizing a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Machine Learning Algorithm to Create Soil Moisture Prediction Models and Improve Water Productivity in Southern California.”
“I figured if there’s an automated way that we can determine how much soil moisture is in the ground at a particular moment in time, we can see how much water needs to be applied to meet the irrigation field goals,” Bhatia said. “Ultimately, we could create crops that don’t waste excess water.”
(Photo courtesy of the Bethpage Union Free School District)
Bhatia was selected for an internship at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory last year. As one of the lab’s “Partners for the Future,” Bhatia is conducting sleep research through computational neuroscience at Cold Spring Harbor’s Engel Lab. She is also a member of her school’s Math Olympiads Team, the Tri-M Music Honor Society, the Ethics Debate Team, the marching, concert and jazz bands, the chamber orchestra and the Philosophy Club, among other groups. Bhatia credited Chris Pollatos, the district’s science director, for believing in her.
“In addition to students’ research, Regeneron is looking for the type of person who works hard, perseveres and someone who is a good role model in their community,” Pollatos said. “Aurrel definitely checks all of those boxes. We have a great district and a great group of students who inspire students to reach their dreams.”
Additionally, Bhatia was a student at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, in which she took part in the Brookhaven National Labs Gifted Math Program, conducted in collaboration with the Museum of Mathematics. She is also a senior mathematics editor for the Young Scientists Journal, where she managed a team of junior editors, assigned articles, facilitated communication between editorial team and upper-level management, and determined scientific accuracy of articles.
“She’s just an incredible young woman who is so talented, and she doesn’t know her full potential,” said Bhatia’s science research teacher, Nicole Dulaney. “I’ve learned so much from her myself and I know that other students learn a lot from her as well. I just can’t wait to see all the wonderful things she’s going to do after high school.”
Bhatia said she plans to study applied mathematics in college.
—Submitted by the Bethpage Union Free School District
