Local Student Finishes Second at National Siemens Competition

Nevin Daniel can add one more item to his growing list of accomplishments. The Ward Melville senior, who hails from Port Jefferson Station, has won second place and a $50,000 scholarship in the 2010 Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology.

Daniel earned a trip to the Siemens nationals after . His second-place national finish was announced Monday morning via a live webcast from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where the Siemens nationals were held.

Dr. George Baldo, director of the InSTAR program at , which last year had its first-ever Siemens national winner in Ruoyi Jiang, said the teen's honor was well deserved – and not much of a surprise.

"Nevin is intensely motivated and extremely passionate about his research even at this early stage in his career," Baldo said. "Coupled with his high intelligence and scientific curiosity, he can make a tremendous contribution to the world during his lifetime."

Daniel spent months working with 's Dr. Iwao Ojima, a distinguished professor and director of the Institute of Chemical Biology & Drug Discovery, and graduate student William Berger to develop a new delivery system for anti-cancer drugs which can reduce the painful side effects of chemotherapy.

Watch a video clip of Daniel competing at Siemens here.

Daniel was one of six individual regional finalists and six team regional finalists competing at the national level. Winners were selected by a panel of judges headed by Dr. Thomas D. Jones, a scientist, author and pilot who is a former NASA astronaut.

Two other Long Island students competed at Siemens nationals. Nikhil Mehandru of Roslyn and Sonya Prasad of Roslyn Heights, will share a $30,000 scholarship with a team member from Indiana. That team was mentored by Miriam Rafailovich, distinguished professor of material science and engineering at Stony Brook.

Thomas McCausland, chairman of the Siemens Foundation, called the Siemens competitors an inspiration.

"As America focuses on reinvigorating math and science education, they remind us of what is possible when young people are challenged to do science at the highest level," he said.