Two New York high school students mentored last summer by Joy Hirsch, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry, of Comparative Medicine and of Neuroscience, were named semifinalists in the prestigious Regeneron Science Talent Search.
Aaron Geula and Michelle Goh are seniors at John L. Miller Great Neck North High School in Great Neck, N.Y. They did their research as summer interns in the High School Research Experience program that Hirsch runs in her lab at Yale School of Medicine every summer.
The Regeneron talent search is the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition, with almost 2,000 student entries this year. Aaron and Michelle were among 300 semifinalists chosen. They each received $2,000, and their high school received $2,000 to use toward STEM-related activities.
The title of Aaron’s project was, “The Neuroscience of Two: Does Cross Brain Coherence Measured by fNIRS Imply a Transfer of Information Between Partners?” Michelle’s project was titled, “The Neuroscience of Artificial Intelligence: Comparison of Brain Activation during Text-Based Chatting with Human and Chatbot Partners.”
Research in the Hirsch Lab aims to understand the neural circuitry and fundamental mechanisms of the brain that enable human cognition, language, emotion, decision making, and perception in both healthy/typical individuals and in patients with neurological, developmental, and psychiatric disorders.