Students in the Science Research Project presented their work on Wednesday night at Regis’s 26th annual Science Symposium. For the participating students, who composed poster-board and oral presentations, the symposium marked the culmination of many months of independent research.

This year’s symposium featured keynote speakers Adam Cartano ’25 and Leo Lee ’25, both of whom earned recognition for their research at the highly competitive New York State Science and Engineering Fair in March. Cartano received an honorable mention, and Lee took first place in the Biomedical and Health Science category, which qualified him for the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, the world’s most prestigious pre-college science competition. 

Lee created an image segmentation machine-learning model that is capable of detecting gastrointestinal polyps in colonoscopies, and Cartano conducted a study on oral cavity cancer treatments. At the conclusion of his presentation, Cartano offered words of advice for the assembled students.

“I had no expectations of this project succeeding at NYSSEF,” said Cartano, “so if you think your idea is good — or even if you don’t — just go ahead with it, put it in a project, and it might go far. You never know what will happen.”

Other projects included a subsonic wind tunnel by Will Filocamo ’25, research into the effects of crude oil on certain algae by Allen Wilk ’25, and a project studying the effectiveness of thermal insulation and reflective paint in urban heat islands by Ezekiel Gonzalez ’26. 

The Science Research Project is an intensive program open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors that gives students interested in scientific research the opportunity to investigate projects of their own design.