Catanzaro was recognized for her research at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Engineering Electronic Design Center, with Dr. Chung Chiun Liu as her mentor. She has worked for four years to develop a microelectrochemical biosensor for improved, faster, easier, and less expensive detection of cholesterol.

She will present her work at the American Academy for the Advancement of Science in Boston in February, and also was previously a finalist at the international science fair I-SWEEEP in Houston in 2012, where she won second place, a silver medal, and a cash award.

These students were chosen from a highly selective group of nominees based on leadership ability, a strong academic record, civic activity in school and/or the community and demonstrated self-reliance, independence and initiative.

Visit www.cleveleads.org or Facebook at www.facebook.com/cleveleads  to learn more about this organization.

This publication was produced jointly by the Canadian Space Agency, the European Space Agency , the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency , the Russian Federal Space Agency, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Over the years, these programs have offered numerous many opportunities for hundreds of schoolchildren to get involved in initiative involving the International Space Station.

PEACE (Polymer Erosion And Contamination Experiment) is a multi-year experiment that is being conducted as a collaborative effort between Hathaway Brown School and NASA Glenn Research Center. It was initiated in 1998 when HB received from the American Chemical Society a reservation to fly an experiment on the space shuttle. Upon obtaining the space experiment reservation, the school approached NASA Glenn and found engineers in the Electrophysics Branch who were willing to partner with and mentor our students as they conducted a space experiment.

Project PEACE has been ongoing for 14 years. Under the leadership of HB's Director of Research Patricia K. Hunt,a team of HB students and teachers, along with NASA engineers Kim deGroh and Bruce Banks have been working together toward the goal of better understanding and beginning to solve the serious problem of Low Earth Orbit erosion problems due to the problematic predominant atmospheric species at LEO, atomic oxygen.

The HB students who have been part of the PEACE team since its inception are: 

This year, HB holds the distinction of being home to the only Siemens finalist from the state of Ohio. Additionally, of the nine semifinalists in the state, five are HB students. The other four Ohio semifinalists are from Hudson High School, Orange High School, and Columbus Academy.

HB's 2012 Siemens Semifinalists are:

Jenn Blumer, for her pharmaceutical research conducted at the CWRU School of Medicine

Aly Bryan, for her research on malaria in Third World countries, conducted at the CWRU School of Medicine

Lena Ransohoff, for her neuroscience research conducted at the Cleveland Clinic

Sham Shelkay, for her cardiology research conducted at the CWRU School of Medicine

Ingrid Zippe, for her neuroscience research conducted at the CWRU School of Medicine

And special congratulations go to the only Siemens Finalist in the state of Ohio:

Gurbani Kaur, for her targeted drug-delivery research in the CWRU School of Biomedical Engineering

As a finalist, Kaur has advanced to the top 36 individual projects in the U.S. She will present her work at the University of Notre Dame next month. She also has the chance to go on to Washington, D.C., where the top six individual projects will compete. Siemens finalists and semifinalists receive awards packages and are eligible for partial to full college scholarships.

Kudos to these talented members of the Class of 2013!

Best wishes to HB students Grace Yi '13, Gianna Mitchell '13, Athena Haloua '14, and Emily Imka '15. These four girls, along with their teachers - Patty Hunt, director of the Science Research & Engineering Program, and Sheri Homany, Upper School Science Department Chair, will be headed to the Netherlands for an international space conference to be held the week of September 24-28.

Yi, Mitchell, Haloua, and Imka will make a presentation at the 11th Annual International Space Conference on Protection of Materials and Structures from the Space Environment (ICPMSE-12) in Noordjwick, Netherlands. Attendees will include delegations of professionals from national space agencies and privatized space companies from the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea, China, Brazil, and Israel. The HB student group will be the only group of high schoolers to present their research findings at the conference.

The HB students are members of the PEACE (Polymer Erosion And Contamination Experiment) team that has partnered with NASA Glenn Research Center scientists Kim de Groh and Bruce Banks since 1998. During that time, 26 HB SREP students have worked with NASA to determine which polymers are best suited for space exposure during differing periods of time and under differing conditions. Their 15 years of data has become a library of information for space scientists all over the world to reference as they design manmade objects such as satellites. 

The HB students will be among only approximately 100 high school students from all over the country presenting at AAAS.

Please congratulate:

Danielle Jones '13, ranked third in Ohio
Sam Santoscoy '12, ranked fourth in Ohio (now a student at Columbia University)
Ingrid Zippe '13
Alice Catanzaro '13
Yasmin Cobanoglu '14
Aparna Narendrula '14

Also invited back to present at AAAS for the second year in row are:

Gurbani Kaur '13
Sham Shelkay '13

All of these students are conducting long-range research projects with mentors at Case Western Reserve University's School of Engineering or CWRU School of Medicine.

Sarah Forcier ’12 presented her research on genetics and neuroscience, conducted at the CWRU School of Medicine.

Claire Ashmead ’12 presented her research on space flight experiments, conducted at NASA Glenn Research Center.

Samantha Reeves ’12 presented her nanotechnology research conducted at the CWRU Department of Chemical Engineering.

Gurbani Kaur ’13 presented her targeted drug delivery research conducted at the CWRU Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Shamanthika Shelkay ’13 presented her cardiovascular disease research conducted at the CWRU School of Medicine.

Additionally, abstracts of original research by 19 Hathaway Brown have been published in the February 2012 Ohio Journal of Science, and they will present their work at the Ohio Academy of Science Annual Meeting to be held at Ashland University, April 13-14, 2012. Their names are listed below, along with the agencies where they conduct their research.

NASA Glenn Research Center: Juniors Grace Yi and Gianna Mitchell

Cleveland Clinic: Juniors Nayab Habib, Lena Ransohoff, and Kiren Walters

CWRU Departments of Engineering and Physics: Juniors Serena Chang, Alice Catanzaro, Devon Kilroy, Joyce Guo, and sophomore Aparna Narendrula

CWRU School of Medicine: Senior Jenny Jones; juniors Ingrid Zippe, Sara Spain, Danielle Jones, Aly Bryan, Preeya Shankar, and sophomore Yasemin Cobanoglu

Independent Robotics Engineering project: Seniors Samantha Santoscoy and Ketki Lele

HB's signature Science Research & Engineering Program is overseen by Director of Research Patricia Hunt. Congratulations to all of these remarkable students!

This summer, more than 50 HB students in rising grades 10, 11, and 12 are conducting research at laboratories at Case Western Reserve University, CWRU School of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic, NASA Glenn Research Center, and Cleveland State University. Topics they are researching include all types of cutting-edge research that is being conducted in the Cleveland area, from nanotechnology and microelectrochemical sensors to biomedical engineering and polymer science engineering; from space flight experiments to physics, robotics, and entymology; from cardiology and neuroscience to oncology and pharmacology; and more.

SREP students spend all of high school with one mentor and one lab, so rising seniors are spending their third summers in their labs, and have progressed to very sophisticated research. Students spend seven weeks full time in their labs in the summer, pieced together in any fashion that works for them, fitting sports and trips into their summers as well. They also go to their labs once a week after school during the school years in between. Many of these students already have professional publications, and many others are heading in that direction.

All of this is due to the kindness and generosity of the professional scientists, researchers, and doctors in the Cleveland area who so skillfully mentor our HB SREP students.

Click here to see pictures of more than two dozen of these students at their labs.

Four HB students traveled to Okinawa, Japan, from June 11-17 to give podium presentations on the research they conducted at NASA Glenn Research Center at a professional conference, the 10th International Space Conference on Protection of Materials and Structures from Space Environment (ICPMSE-10J). They traveled with their NASA mentors, Senior Materials Scientist Kim de Groh and Senior Physicist Bruce Banks, along with Science Research & Engineering Program director Patty Hunt.

The conference was attended by a group of elite researchers who study the detrimental effects of space environment factors such as UV radiation and an unusual type of oxygen called AO on space vehicles and satellites that include the GPS and telecommunications satellites on which society depends.

They were the only high school students in attendance. Other attendees included high level researchers from the national space agencies of Japan, China, Russia, Europe, and Canada, in addition to NASA. The students’ formal technical papers on their respective presentations will be published in the ICPMSE-10J Proceedings Volume.

The students are the current four members of the SREP’s PEACE Team (Polymer Erosion And Contamination Experiment) which began in 1998 under the mentorship of de Groh and Banks, and has included 25 students from the classes of 1999 to 2014.

Aobo Guo ‘11 and Claire Ashmead ‘12 presented their work, “Effect of Solar Exposure on the Atomic Oxygen Erosion of Hubble Space Telescope Aluminized-Teflon Thermal Shields,” co-authored by de Groh. Grace Yi ’13 and Gianna Mitchell ’13 presented their work, “Embrittlement of Polymers After 13 Months of Space Exposure,” co-authored by Guo, Ashmead, de Groh, and Banks. Banks and de Groh were also presenters at the conference.

To read Grace Yi's reflection on this experience, click here.

To read the June 10 story in The Plain Dealer about these students, click here.

To view a slideshow of additional images from the trip, click here.

Congratulations Adriana!

Lily Roberts, Arielle Stambler, Karen Inoshita, Claire Barbagallo, Catherine McCarthy, Lauren Berger, and Rochelle Rucker, members of the HB classes of 2007-2010, were given a Group Achievement Award at NASA’s Honor Awards Ceremony. The agency recognized these HB graduates and their colleagues for their outstanding scientific and engineering efforts that resulted in the successful flight of 11 experiments on the MISSE 6.

The 29 members of the MISSE 6 team were celebrated along with other Glenn employees who received NASA’s highest honors at a ceremony held at LaCentre in Westlake on August 18.

Since 1999, more than 20 HB students in the school’s Science Research and Engineering Program overseen by Patricia Hunt have worked closely with NASA Glenn mentors Kim de Groh and Bruce Banks on this ongoing polymer erosion and contamination experiment.

Each of the HB students who participated was ranked as a finalist in the competition, for which she received an all-expenses-paid trip to California for the event. The students brought home other prestigious awards as well.

Rebecca Forcier won third place and $500 from the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists for her research on The Use of Gas-Filled Liquid Microbubbles for Ultrasound Modulated Drug Release from in-situ Forming PLGA Implants. Forcier's research for the project was conducted at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center.

Diana Basali also received $500, along with a fourth-place Grand Award in Cellular and Molecular Biology for her research on Feeding Studies and Immunofluorescent Analysis of Feeding Circuit in Lean Syndecan-3 Null Mice, a study on the genetic link to obesity, conducted at Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Center.

The team of Aobo Guo and Claire Ashmead brought home $500 and a fourth-place Grand Award in Earth and Space Science for their research on The Effect of Solar Exposure on the Atomic Oxygen Erosion of Hubble Space Telescope Bi-Stem Thermal Shield Aluminized-Teflon FEP, conducted at NASA Glenn Research Center.

While the HB students were in San Jose, Rebecca Forcier was interviewed for National Public Radio. Listen to a podcast of her conversation with WKSU reporter Jeff St. Clair by clicking here.

Team 2399 and Genghis Khan advanced through the ranking matches and into the elimination matches, hanging on until the quarterfinals. This is the best the team has fared in its three years of competition at the regional tournament.

Go, Team 2399!

Koch conducted neuroscience research aimed at curing MS at the Cleveland Clinic.

Dumm conducted research linking oral bacterial in pregnant women to dangerously preterm births, at the Case Dental School.

Forcier developed a targeted drug delivery system in which lipid or polymer microbubbles filled with drugs are sent to the targeted area inside the body and then the bubbles are burst using external ultrasound. Her research was done at University Hospitals Case Medical Center.

They were among a select group of about 110 high school students from all around the country who were invited to present at the AAAS.

All members of HB’s well respected signature Science Research & Engineering Program, these young women are the only females in Ohio to have been designated Intel STS semifinalists this year. The state’s four other semifinalists are males hailing from three different southwest Ohio schools.

The projects that earned the HB students semifinalist status represent a wide array of research disciplines.

Rebecca Forcier created polymer or lipid nanobubbles to act as targeted drug-delivery systems in the body. These nanobubbles are made of or are filled with drugs, which are delivered to the problem site, then burst by ultrasound to release the medication. Her research was conducted in the Case Western Reserve University/University Hospitals Case Medical Center Biomedical Engineering and Radiology Department.

Rachel Myer made an improved micro- or nano-scale laser using layered polymeric systems instead of conventional crystals in the CWRU Physics Department/Center for Layered Polymeric Systems (CLIPS).

Diana Basali, who – along with Myer - in October was named a semifinalist in the Siemens competition in Math, Science & Technology, was recognized for her research on the genetic cause of obesity. Her work was completed at the Cleveland Clinic.

The 2010 Intel STS drew entries from 1,736 high school seniors from 472 schools around the country. Three hundred of those students were selected as semifinalists. With a total of seven semifinalists, Ohio ranked better than 32 other states in number of semifinalists.

Each semifinalist is awarded an individual prize of $1,000, along with $1,000 for his or her school. The STS has been administered by the Society for Science & the Public since 1942. It formerly was affiliated with Westinghouse. Visit the competition website to learn more.

Click here to watch the segment at newsnet5.com.

Current HB members of the PEACE (Polymer Erosion and Contamination Experiment) team are Arielle Stambler '10, Karen Inoshita '10,  Aobo Guo '11,  Claire Ashmead '11, Gianna Mitchell '13 and Grace Yi '13. These young women are partners with NASA researchers Kim deGroh and Bruce Banks.

The experiment calls for the preparation, analysis and cataloging of polymer materials that are launched aboard space shuttles and docked in low-earth orbit outside the International Space Station. The PEACE team has been in existence for 12 years. In that time, more than 20 HB students have worked on projects resulting in findings that could prove to be beneficial to astronauts and others. The team has launched three experiments into space, with the fourth to go up aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis on Monday, November 16, 2009.

On November 13, the materials from the third NASA/HB experiment that recently returned from orbit were opened by the PEACE team. In the coming months, these scientists will analyze the polymers and document their findings so that inferences may be made about which materials respond the best when exposed to atomic oxygen and ultraviolet radiation.

On Monday, the space shuttle will blaze into space. Once the shuttle docks with the International Space Station, astronauts will attach the materials to the outside of the Station where they will stay for months before they are brought back to Earth for analysis.

Congratulations to the hard working current members of the PEACE Team: Arielle Stambler '10, Karen Inoshita '10, Aobo Guo '11, and Claire Ashmead '12, and to the two newest members, Gianna Mitchell '13 and Grace Yi '13. Aobo, Karen, and Arielle are Siemens semifinalists for their recent work.

This collaboration is in its twelfth year. NASA engineers Bruce Banks and Kim de Groh have been remarkable partners from the very beginning. HB is grateful for their collaboration and proud of our student scientists.

For her original research in the area of neurological stem cells in the lab of Dr. Bob Miller at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Julie won $1,000 in addition to the third-place ribbon. Lizzie, who designed, built and programmed an autonomous human-seeking robot under the mentorship of Dr. Wyatt Newman at the Case School of Engineering, also received $1,000. In addition to the third-place honors she received in the Engineering category, Lizzie was given an Honorable Mention for her work from the International Council on Systems Engineering.

As ISEF finalists, during the week in Reno, Julie and Lizzie were treated to cultural, social and scientific events, such as a panel discussion and Q&A with several Nobel laureates. As a top-40 finalist in Intel's Science Talent Search, which was held earlier this year, Lizzie was also one of just a few students selected to be part of a student panel that offered tips to parents and teachers for succeeding in high-stakes science events.

Also this year, Julie was an Intel STS semifinalist and winner of $1,000, and a gold medalist and winner of $1,000 at i-SWEEEP in Houston. Lizzie's top-40 finalist spot at Intel STS garnered her $6,000 and a laptop, and she also presented her work at the AAAS in Chicago. Both students have worked in their respective labs since their freshman year.

Ingrid '13 was the Grand Prize winner in the Physical Science categories for seventh and eighth graders at the Northeast Ohio Science and Engineering Fair, a four-day competition held March 2 - 5. Presented by The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Great Lakes Science Center and John Carroll University, this year's NEOSEF brought more than 500 students from more than 80 area middle and high schools together to compete for special awards and prize money.

NEOSEF also selects up to four Grand Prize winners in grades 9 through 12 to advance to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Two students from Hathaway Brown - Lizzie '09 and Julie '09 - will join those students at ISEF, which will be held in Reno, NV, in May. These HB seniors were each awarded an all-expenses paid trip to the weeklong competition, where more than 1,200 top projects will be displayed by students from more than 50 countries. The event is billed as a scienctific, cultural, and social celebration.

Lizzie and Julie were awarded these berths by being named Grand Prize winners in the SREP Poster Session that was held March 3 at Hathaway Brown School. Participation in this poster session - which is recognized by ISEF as a site in its competition circuit - allows HB students to go directly to ISEF.

Hathaway Brown Middle School students fared extremely well in the NEOSEF competition. Ingrid's project, "The Effect of Blade Pitch on Wind Turbine Efficiency" was judged to be the best of more than 200 projects to have been entered in the Physical Sciences categories. All 12 HB Middle School students who entered NEOSEF were recognized with individual awards for their projects. The other award winners were:

Biology:
Shree '14 - Second Place
"Effect of Caffeine on the Heart Rate of Daphnia pulex"
Lena '13 - Second Place
"From Green to Yellow: Analyzing Leaf Pigments with Thin Layer Chromotography"
Mary Alice '13 - Honorable Mention
"The Effect of Water Filtration Systems on the Amount of Bacteria in Water Over Time"
Environmental:
Jenn '13 - Second Place
"From Algae to Biodiesel"
Ariana '14 - Second Place
"Mercury and pH Levels in Lake Erie"

Health/Medicine:
Gianna '13 - Second Place
"Effect of Time and Location on Bacterial Growth on Chicken"
Mckenzie '13 - Third Place
"Do Certain Ingredients in Toothpaste Stunt the Growth of Bacteria?"
Charlotte '13 - Third Place
"The Effect of Radiofrequency Waves on the Behavior of Planaria Worms"

Math/Computer Science:
Dhiksha '14 - First Place
"Napoleon's Theorem and Variations"

Physics:
Danielle '13 - Second Place
"Does Trajectory Influence the Distance a Ball Travels?"

Engineering:
Ingrid '13 - First Place
"Effect of Blade Pitch on the Efficiency of a Wind Turbine"
Nicole '14 - Second Place
"Sodium Polyacrylate as an Additive to Sandbags in Levy Structures"

Several HB Middle School students will also compete in the Western Reserve District 5 Science Day to be held at the University of Akron on March 21.

Congratulations to all of HB's talented young scientists and engineers!

Hathaway Brown School's FIRST Robotics Team 2399 - the only all-girls' team from northern Ohio - will be competing in the Buckeye Regional Robotics competition

February 26 - 28, 2009

at

Cleveland State University's Wolstein Center


Come cheer on the team anytime Friday or Saturday. The competition is free and open to the public. Visit the official event website for times and additional information.

For the first time in school history, two students from Hathaway Brown have been designated as Finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search, which recognizes the top 40 high school seniors in the United States in a showcase of innovation. A program of the Society for Science & the Public, the brightest minds in American high schools will come together for a weeklong conference in Washington, D.C., in March. There, they will compete for $530,000 in scholarships, with the top winner receiving a $100,000 scholarship from the Intel Foundation.

Hathaway Brown has had individual students reach this Finalist level in the past, but never two students at the same time. No school in the United States has more than HB's two finalists this year, and only four high schools (three in New York and one in Virginia) have as many.

Caitlin and Lizzie, HB class of 2009, were recognized today for individual projects that represent their hard work, dedication, ingenuity and insightfulness. Previously named semifinalists - along with three of their classmates - these young women each add $5,000, a laptop computer and an all-expenses-paid trip to the nation's capital to the $1,000 they were already awarded for their accomplishments.

According to a press release issued by Intel, over the past 67 years, the young innovators chosen to participate in the Science Talent Search have gone on to receive some of the world's most prestigious honors. For example, seven former Finalists have won the Nobel Prize while others have been awarded the Fields Medal, the National Medal of Science and MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. While in Washington, D.C., Finalists will undergo a rigorous judging process, meet with national leaders, interact with leading scientists and display their research at the National Academy of Sciences. Top winners will be announced at a black-tie gala award ceremony at the Mellon Auditorium on March 10.

This year, three Finalists were named for the state of Ohio, with two of those coming from Hathaway Brown. Of the 40 high school seniors who were named Finalists in the competition, 17 are young women. The entire pool of applicants included 1,608 students.

Finalist status was granted to Lizzie for designing, building and programming a search-and-rescue robot with mentor Dr. Wyatt Newman of the Case School of Engineering. Caitlin was designated as an Intel Science Talent Search Finalist for making a microelectrochemical biosensor for fast and simple diagnosis of heart attack, under the guidance of Dr. C.C. Liu of the Case School of Engineering. Both young women are members of HB's Science Research & Engineering Program, overseen by Patricia Hunt.

Past Hathaway Brown School students who were recognized as Finalists in this competition include Ann Lai (2001) and Erin Schikowski (2007).