3 Commack Students Named Intel Semifinalists

Three students are semifinalists in the most competitive high school science contest in the nation, the Society for Science and the Public announced Wednesday.

Lee Austin, 17, Rebecca Alford, 17 and Savina Kim, 17, are among 300 students chosen from a pool of 1,839 young minds competing in the The Intel Science Talent Search.

Their semifinalist positions will earn them each $1,000 as well as $3,000 to Commack High School to support further excellence in science, math and/or engineering education.

Austin was chosen for a project entitled "Carbonation in Pervious Concrete: A Novel Study of the Sustainability Benefits of Pervious Concrete." Alford was chosen for her project "A Novel Structure-Based Approach to Predicting the Functional Effects of Mutations in Membrane Proteins" and Kim for "Cognitive Deficits in Neuropsychiatric Disorders: A Schizophrenia Model Associated with Neuronal Alpha7 Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Localization."

Autin, Alford and Kim will now move on to the next round of the competition, in which 40 finalists will be chosen to attend the Intel Science Talent Institute in Washington, D.C. and compete for the chance to win a grand prize of $100,000.

The 40 Intel STS 2012 finalists will be announced on January 25.