Herricks High School congratulates seniors Serena Chen, Shannon Hong, Caitlin Lee, Sandeep Sawhney and Armaan Vaswani who were announced as semifinalists in the 2025 Regeneron Science Talent Search on Jan. 8. Regeneron is the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors.
Just 300 students are selected nationwide for this distinction with just 49 from Long Island schools, the most winners of any region in the United States.
Each of the five Herricks students committed themselves to their individual research for eight weeks and dedicated another eight weeks to complete the submission of their original, independent research projects, essays and recommendations. In preparation, the aspiring scientists collaborated with mentors virtually and in person.
Serena Chen – “The Novel Involvement of Peroxisomal Beta-Oxidation During Mitochondrial Inhibition in Catecholamine-Stimulated Acyl-Coenzyme A Oxidase 1 (ACOX1) Knockout White Adipocytes”
Shannon Hong – “Leveraging Machine Learning to Reveal the Impacts of Light Pollution on Suboscine Birdsong Characteristics Extracted From the Xeno-Canto Database: A Principal Component Analysis”
Caitlin Lee – “In vitro Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron JN.1 Subvariants with Spike S31 Deletion and Their Evasion of COVID-19 Therapies”
Sandeep Sawhney – “Gallium Mediated DNA Tensegrity Triangle Based Crystals: A Novel Prototype Facilitating Gallium Cancer Therapy”
Armaan Vaswani – “The Novel Effect of Veratrin on Cellular Viability and Apoptotic Proteins in Fuchs Endothelial Corneal Dystrophy”
By participating in this competition, students have access to a national stage to present their original research which brings a fresh perspective to significant global challenges.
Each of the Regeneron Scholars is awarded $2,000 for themselves and $2,000 to support science and research at Herricks High School.
From the select pool of semifinalists, 40 student finalists are invited to participate in final judging, display their work to the public, meet with notable scientists and compete for awards, including the top award of $250,000. The final winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on March 11.
