Pictured: Massapequa High School junior Autumn Romer received a high honors award in this year’s Long Island Science Congress competition.
Photos courtesy of the Massapequa School District
Even before graduating high school, Autumn Romer is looking to contribute to the medical field. Her research on brain tumors earned her a high honors award from the Long Island Science Congress.
The Massapequa High School junior presented at LISC’s senior division fair at Walt Whitman High School in April and received her award at a ceremony on June 2 at the Wheatley School. Autumn’s project, “Applying oscillating magnetic fields to slow the growth and/or kill glioblastoma cells,” was done for both her Science Research and Advanced Placement Research classes, allowing to devote an extensive amount of time to her study of brain cancer.
Science research teacher Paul Hesleitner said that to complete the project, Autumn studied human brain cancer cells and designed her own oscillating magnetic field incubator. She did this work right in the high school’s science research room, and many of the components had to be stored at very low temperatures.
Congratulating Autumn on her award were, from left, Supervisor of Science 6-12 Daniel Mezzafonte, science research teacher Paul Hesleitner and Principal Barbara Lowell.
“This is the first study of this kind that we’ve ever tried at Massapequa High School,” Mr. Hesleitner said, adding that Autumn will continue work on similar research in her senior year.
Autumn’s mentor was Karen Calabrese, a science teacher at Berner Middle School who has done her own cell research at Stony Brook University.
She got her start in the science research program in eighth grade, and her projects have continued to get more ambitious. Her interest in brain tumor research began in 10th grade in AP Seminar, the first class in the two-part AP Capstone program. Autumn said she enjoys working on a project that has actual real-world implications and contributes to scientific knowledge that can be used to help people.
“I’m really grateful to be recognized by the Long Island Science Congress,” Autumn said. “It’s only a first-year project and I’m excited to see what I can do with this next year.”
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