Fourteen of the 40 finalists announced yesterday in the 53d Westinghouse Science Talent Search, the nation's oldest science contest, are from New York State, double last year's number. Winners of the Westinghouse search are considered some of the brightest, most promising scientists of the future. Five Westinghouse scholars have gone on to win Nobel prizes. In 1992, 20 finalists were from New York State.
This year's finalists include 16 girls and 24 boys from 37 high schools in 31 cities and 21 states. They were chosen from among 1,645 students who submitted independent research projects on subjects ranging from lead detection in soil samples to brain tissue's ability to repair itself after a stroke. The judges also evaluated statements explaining each project as well as teachers' evaluations.
Grace Yang, 17, a senior at Bronx High School of Science who came to the United States from Seoul at age 3, was a finalist in the biology division. She analyzed DNA to prove the common ancestry of mainland Chinese and South Koreans, who are thought to have migrated to the Korean peninsula 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. Inspired by the research of S.W. Ballinger, who supported the common ancestry hypothesis linguistically, Ms. Yang worked in the office of the New York Medical Examiner using blood samples drawn from homicide victims.
"It went smoothly in the beginning, but in September I ran into wall after wall after wall," said Ms. Yang, who worked with Robert Shaler, a forensic pathologist, a mentor she praised for letting her do the work herself. "He let me do what I thought was necessary to get my experiment going."
'I Felt Like a Prince'
Jamel Oeser, a 17-year-old senior at Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Manhattan, was the first student ever to enter the competition from his school.
"They announced that I was a finalist on the P.A. this morning," Mr. Oeser said. "I felt like a prince.'
Mr. Oeser credited his mentor, Dr. Edward Bottone, a doctor at Mount Sinai Medical Center, for much of his success. "He grew up in East Harlem," said Mr. Oeser. "He understands people with my kind of background."
One finalist, Alex Sinelnikov, a 17-year-old senior at James Madison High School in Brooklyn, collected soil samples near an old rapid-transit structure in his neighborhood and analyzed them with a spectrophotometer. He deduced that lead contamination was dispersed during maintenance from the old lead-based paints previously used on such structures.
Among the other finalists were Job Rijssenbeek and Todd Hod, both 17-year-old students at Ward Melville High School in Setauket, L.I. The school has had five Westinghouse finalists in the last seven years.
Mr. Rijssenbeek's project dealt with finding new ways to produce zeolites, crystal structures that are useful for filters in the gasoline and pharmaceutical industries. Mr. Hod's project was to discover how binding proteins affect the structure of certain strands of RNA.
"When we started, neither one of us expected to get this far," said Mr. Hod.
Mr. Rijssenbeek said he was also surprised. "We always heard about past finalists," he said. "They had an aura about them, as the best in the school. We never thought we would be in their ranks."
In March, the finalists are to travel to Washington for final judging by a panel of eight scientists. The winner of the Westinghouse Science Talent Search is awarded a $40,000 scholarship.
These are the 14 finalists from New York:
CHOI, Won (Ed), 17, Woodside, Bronx High School Science.
TARTAKOVSKY, Flora, 17, Queens, Bronx High School of Science.
YANG, Grace, 17, Little Neck, Bronx High School of Science.
MULLER, Tamas, 17, Brooklyn, Edward R. Murrow High School.
SINELNIKOV, Alex Olegovich, 17, Brooklyn, James Madison High School.
MINKOVA, Mariya, 17, Brooklyn, Midwood High School at Brooklyn College.
ZHENG, Shimin, 18, Forest Hills, Townsend Harris High School/Queens College.
STAROPOLI, John Francois, 17, Lynbrook, Waldorf School.
LIN, Jennifer Yu-Fe, 17, Flushing, Hunter College High School.
MARTIN, Alexis Zeiff, 17, Flushing, La Guardia High School of Music and Art.
OESER-SWEAT, Jamel Lamonte, 17, New York, Martin Luther King Jr. High School.
CHEN, Johnson, 17, Fresh Meadows, Stuyvesant High School.
HOD, Todd Eldad, 17, Stony Brook, Ward Melville High School.
RIJSSENBEEK, Job Thomas, 17, Stony Brook, Ward Melville High School.
