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CUMC Lab Nurtures Intel Winners
Joy Hirsch, Ph.D., director of the Functional MRI Research Center at CUMC, has a winning touch. For several years now, her lab has mentored high school science students who have gone on to make tremendous showings at the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search competition.
   The competition brings together 40 outstanding young scientists from across the country to compete for $1.25 million in scholarships. Every year, about 1,700 high school seniors enter the Intel competition with original projects. Out of those, 300 semifinalists are chosen; the field is further narrowed to 40 finalists before the winner is selected in March.
   This year, Dr. Hirsch’s lab has three semifinalists and one finalist.
Caitlyn Lia (semifinalist): Ossining High School
Zachary Lorsch (semifinalist): Oceanside High School
Judith Savitskaya (semifinalist): The Academy for the Advancement of Science and Technology
Benjamin Mueller (finalist): John L. Miller-Great Neck North High School, identified the specialized neural networks involved in decisions to reward and punish in parenting, and located the common neural network underlying both actions. fMRI was used to measure brain activity in five human subjects as they responded to the hypothetical actions of a child. Ben concluded that the decision to punish requires a greater degree of brain regulation and reason than the decision to reward.
   “The showing of these students in this competition is a wonderful recognition of the teaching and community outreach missions of CUMC,” Dr. Hirsch says.

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