By Donald Gilpin

With an array of projects in the fields of math, physics, plant science, environmental science, computer science, chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and medicine, seven Princeton High School (PHS) students and a Princeton Middle School student brought home a total of 12 awards from the Mercer County Science and Engineering Fair held at Rider University earlier this month.

Many of the students who received awards participate in the PHS Research Program where they develop experiments, collect data, and produce their results under the guidance of PHS science teachers Mark Eastburn, James Smirk, and Jennifer Smolyn, along with PHS computer science teacher Grace Elia.

“We are close to realizing the greater goal of getting every student in our community to explore their passion and complete a meaningful inquiry project before high school graduation,” said PHS Science Supervisor Joy Barnes-Johnson in congratulating the group and wishing them ongoing success in their STEM explorations.

“We are very proud of these students, and all of them have worked very hard to make these achievements,” said Eastburn.

Nick Hagedorn

Eleventh grader Nick Hagedorn was the grand prize winner in the category of Math, Physics, and Astronomy for his project on “Strict Inequalities for the n-crossing Number,” “a truly integrative project that builds on his interests in knot theory,” according to Barnes-Johnson. 

Hagedorn’s project also won him the Naval Science Award and the honor of representing Mercer County in the International Science and Engineering Fair, the world’s largest pre-college STEM competition, which will take place in Dallas, Texas in May. “I am very excited for the fair and I am especially looking forward to meeting new people from across the world,” said Hagedorn.

In an email Monday, he explained some of the intricacies of knot theory and his fascination with the field and its applications in synthetic chemistry, in cybersecurity, in biology, and in developing certain chemotherapy drugs.

“Without any doubt in my mind, you will make an unforgettable mark on the STEM world in the days ahead,” Barnes-Johnson wrote to him in a congratulatory email.

First-prize winner in the Plant Science category was PHS senior Katherine Monroe with her project on “Mealworm Frass as Fertilizer,” and she was also awarded the Air Force Research Laboratory Award.

Monroe has spent the last three years developing and carrying out her independent project in seeking to find sustainable solutions for agriculture and combating climate change. She became interested in finding safer, effective alternatives to fertilizers, and turned to studying insect frass, made from excrement, to do so, according to Smolyn. Monroe was able to demonstrate that frass can increase plant productivity and serve as a potential alternative to fertilizers. 

She was also one of only two students from New Jersey to participate in the World Food Prize Global Youth Institute last year and will be presenting at PHS’s annual research symposium in June.

“Katherine is a fantastic role model for our younger students, demonstrating the value of curiosity and persistence in research,” Smolyn wrote in an email. “As a leader in the program, she mentors students who are starting to plan out their projects, providing guidance and advice to those just beginning their research journeys.”

Daniela Gonzalez

In the Chemistry and Materials category, PHS senior Daniela Gonzalez was the second-place winner for her project “Scrubs with Bugs: Cleaning, Disinfecting, and Foaming Properties of Soaps Made with Sustainable Oils.” That project also won Gonzalez the RICOH Development Award.

She explained how she was able to create and develop her project, which was an offshoot of her work on the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Competition that PHS won last year.  “I have been interested in skin care and cosmetics for a long time, but my real passion is marine biology and oceanography,” she wrote. “This is why I wanted to make a soap that does not damage the environment, as palm oil does.”

She continued, “We need to take better care of the planet, and I would also like to know how these soaps will break down in the water. If I have time, that is what I will look at next.”

Eastburn pointed out, “Her results showed that soaps made from black soldier fly oil actually cleaned grease better than palm oil soap, and removed bacteria equally well.”

Emphasizing the importance of “working as a team with the resources of our planet,” Gonzalez added, “Having the support and the ability to provide a good, sustainable, high quality, and profitable solution is like a dream. My goals working with chemistry, science, and research are to contribute to the discovery of how the world works.”

Another PHS senior working to improve the planet, Shrey Khetan won first place in the Environmental Science and Engineering category for his project on “Catalytic Carbon Capture: A Low-cost Climate Change Mitigation Strategy,” and also brought home the American Meteorological Society’s Outstanding Achievement award and NOAA’s Taking the Pulse of the Planet award.

“Climate change is the greatest problem of my generation,” Khetan wrote. “A lot of focus is on reducing carbon dioxide emissions to mitigate extent of climate change. We will also need to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to avoid the worst effects of climate change.”

He continued, “With this goal in mind, my research was aimed to develop a low-cost, scalable, and sustainable process using a liquid metal catalyst to convert carbon dioxide into solid carbon. I have been able to overcome a number of challenges and setbacks to get to this proof of concept, and will continue to work on this to develop a fully working solution.”

Other PHS prize winners included senior Sumuk Anand, who won second place in Environmental Science and Engineering with “A Novel Method to Accelerate the Degradation Rate of Plant-based Tableware Using Compost Tea”; sophomore Amy Lin, who won third place in the Software and Embedded Systems category with her project on “Understanding Dog Behavior through Visual and Aural Sensing Using Deep Learning”; and sophomore Lawrence He, who received honorable mention in the Biochemistry, Biology, and Medical category with his project on “Biochemical Nanosensor Networks for Accurate Injury Detection.”

Samhita Shriram

In the General Science junior division Princeton Middle School seventh grader Samhita Shriram received an Outstanding Achievement award for her project “Salt and Surface: The Fastest Way to Melt Ice.”

“I spent about two months conducting experiments and analyzing data,” Shriram wrote in an email. “I learned so much about de-icing roads and sidewalks, and I also learned how to do research.”

Curiosity was the strongest motivating factor, she said, as she followed up on a school lesson on conductivity. “While I had a little knowledge about thermal conductivity, I didn’t know why different surfaces had different thermal conductivities, or what it really meant,” she explained. “Also, it was winter, and I noticed that salt was used to melt ice, and I didn’t know why. By combining these two questions, the idea for the project was born.”

Shriram is excited to develop a new project and participate in next year’s fair. “I’ve always loved science because it explains why everything happens the way it does, which I find really interesting,” she said.