SHREWSBURY – March 12, 2009.  Today some of the best and brightest high school students converged in the Campus Center at WPI for the 50th annual regional science fair.  They have worked on these projects for months, won the competitions at their local high schools, and are now here to compete among their peers for thousands of dollars in awards and prizes.

Local scientists, engineers, and medical professionals from throughout the region have volunteered their time to judge the competition, and the winners will move to the state championships.

Shrewsbury’s efforts were coordinated by SHS Science Director, Dr. Derric Lowery,  as well as SHS teachers such as Ms. Mongiat and Mr. Geyer who work with the “Research Topics and Honors Physics, Biology, and Chemistry” classes.   These classes recruit some of the top students in the district to go one step beyond the already intense Honors Level classes, and augment it with independent research on a topic of their choice.

Over 50 Freshmen, Sophomores, and Juniors from SHS participated in the science fair at SHS two weeks ago, and from that pool of brilliant students, the 12 best were selected based on project scores from the team of judges.

Those achieving this great honor, and chosen to represent our community are as follows:

Grade 9

Ryan Carelli – “Rocket Stability in Subsonic Flow”
Dennis Giaya – “Slick Boats”
Sam Levine – “Function of Photovoltaic Solar Cells as Tested with Four Variables”
Nick Silverio – “Pirouette Problem”

Grade 10

Andrew Li – “Whales and the Wind”
Robbie Li – “Get Green!  Get Green?”
Stephanie McCoy – Using Saccharomyces Bayanus to Produce Ethanol:  New England Feedstocks”
Raghav Mishra – “Dual Chamber Microbial Organic Fuel Cell”
Malik Salah – “H1N…Not!  Let’s Kill the Germs!”

Grade 11

Lubana Afreen – “Target VIT-D with MIRS for the Raputic Target for Bone Disease”
Rachel Kositsky – “Hearing is Seeing: Ultrasonic Echolocation”
Nidhee Krishnan – “A Methodology for Scene Perception Using Video Analytics”

The ability to field such an incredible group of students to represent our school underscores the amazing achievements in Math and Science found here in the Shrewsbury Public School System, and provide great inspiration for all of the students and faculty alike.

We wish these twelve the absolute best of luck in the regionals, and then on to states!