5 North Allegheny students participate in the Governor's School for the Sciences

Five North Allegheny seniors participated in The Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Sciences this summer, an annual program that fosters scientific thinking, scholarly collaboration, and interpersonal connections while encouraging women and minority students to consider science careers.

The program, which took place July 2-Aug. 5, is considered the premier STEM education experience for Pennsylvania’s brightest high school students. It provides an opportunity to study college-level courses, conduct hands-on laboratory experiments and conduct original research in a rigorous environment.

The five NA students constituted the largest number of participants from any single school district in the program in the same year.

They are: Dinuk DeAlmeida, Renuk DeAlmeida, Helen Mao, Edward Mei, and Kamya Rajesh.

The projects they completed as part of small groups are:

Dinuk DeAlmeida: DNA Damage & Ultraviolet Radiation: Efficacy of Various SPF Containing Products on Saccharomyces Cerevisiae

Renuk DeAlmeida: Investigating the Impacts of Environmental Factors on Neuron Function Using L. terrestris and C. elegans

Helen Mao: Journey Through the Star: A Minimax Exploration of Chinese Checkers

Edward Mei: Paper Soccer: Exploration of Decision Tree Algorithms

Kamya Rajesh: Connecting the Dots: Using Turn-Based Game Strategy to Solve Dots and Boxes

Derek Wang, a 2014 North Allegheny graduate, was a guest lecturer and introduced students to quantum computing. Wang earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s of Science from Stanford in Materials Science and Engineering. He obtained an Master’s of Science in theoretical and computation chemistry from Oxford University and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Harvard.

Hundreds of students apply to attend the school and about 70 students were selected for the 35-day intensive workshop hosted by Carnegie Mellon University. Students attended classes and worked on a large group project that they had to present to their peers in the final two days.

The students invited NASD teachers Matthew Davis, who teaches AP Chemistry, and Sharon Volpe, who teaches AP Calculus and Linear Algebra, to attend the final banquet as guests of the governor’s school program.