Model UN
High School South’s Model United Nation’s club recently received the Best Small Delegation award at the Rutgers Model UN conference. The team competed against more than 100 other schools and 3,000 participants from around the world. The four-day conference, hosted by the Institute for Domestic and International Affairs, was held November 11 to 14.
South students who received individual honors are Vyshakh Kodoth, Jared Ziment, Rahul Sabbineni, Nikhil Sharma, Eric Tang, Jordan Reece, Nikhil Gavai, Omeed Alerasool, and Laurence Hochman.
“The South MUN Club has created a reputable name for the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district over the past 30 years, and we plan to continue this success throughout the rest of this year,” says Kodoth, the club’s president. “Our performance at this conference was an effective indicator to how we hope to perform in our extremely competitive upcoming conferences at Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, and Georgetown.”
The group’s advisors are Brad Borsuk and Erin Schomburg. Visit www.wwphssmun.com for more information.
Siblings Win Siemens Competition
Michael and Rose Soskind, above, are quite a sister and brother team. The High School South students recently competed in the Siemens Math, Science, and Technology Competition Regional Finals, where they were awarded Bronze place.
The siblings worked together on a project in the field of physics, specifically the area of photonics. The work they presented was based upon research originally presented at the International Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers Optics and Photonics Conference.
“It was an amazing experience we will always remember,” said Michael Soskind. “We are eager to continue conducting scientific research.”
Rose Soskind thanked the Siemens Foundation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the experience and said she enjoyed working on the project with her brother.
Rose, 17, a senior, and Michael, 15, a sophomore, have lived in Plainsboro for the past 10 years. Their father, Yakov, is a systems engineer, and their mother, Eleanora, is a registered nurse.
Poster Contest
Winners
Two West Windsor residents placed in the top of the Mercer County Soil Conservation District’s poster contest. Yanjie Qiu, a Grover Middle School student, received first place. Mimi Fang, a student at High School South, received second place.
The theme for the contest was “Conservation Habits = Healthy Habitats.” Students were challenged to create a poster that interprets the theme and its relevance to their everyday lives.
First and second place winners in each grade category receive $100 and $50 cash prizes, respectively. The first place entries will be forwarded to the state level competition, with the potential to continue on to the national competition.
“Just a few simple changes can make a bigger difference in the environment than one would think,” says Fang, a ninth grade student whose poster illustrates a combination of simple conservation habits, “For example, by using cloth shopping bags, reusable water containers, and compact fluorescent light bulbs, we can reduce the pollution and energy used to make so much plastic.”
Other winning posters depict green energy alternatives, the varied habitats of New Jersey, and ocean animals enjoying a healthy ecosystem. Visit https://mercerscd.org/education/contest.htm for more information.
Writing Awards
Madeline Day, a freshman at High School North, was a winner in the National Council of Teachers of English’s “Promising Young Writers Program.” She was nominated by Lisa O’Shea, her language arts teacher, and Karen Rosnick, her PRISM/Scenario Writing coach, while an eighth grader at Community Middle School. Nominated students submitted two pieces of writing (one theme-based and one “best” writing piece), which were read by teams of judges who then determined the winners. She was one of four winners from the state of New Jersey.
New Fellow Elected
Jon Menard of West Windsor was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He was honored for his work in plasma physics and fusion energy research. Plasma is a hot, electrically charged gas used as the fuel to produce fusion energy — the power source of the sun and other stars.
Menard, program director for a fusion experiment called the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX), was cited for seminal studies regarding magnetohydrodynamics — the dynamics of electrically conducting fluids such as plasmas — and for contributions to tokamak research. Tokamaks and spherical torii are types of fusion devices.
“Jon has been a world leader in laying the scientific foundation for the spherical tokamak concept,” said PPPL director Stewart Prager.
Menard is also responsible for guiding the scientific research program of NSTX, working with the national research team. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992, Menard went on to receive a master’s and a Ph.D. in plasma physics from Princeton University, Department of Astrophysical Sciences. He conducted post-doctoral research at PPPL before joining the research staff in 1999.
Among his honors, Menard was awarded a U.S. Department of Energy Magnetic Fusion Science Fellowship in 1993, the Princeton University Honorific Fellowship in 1996, and received the “Best Student Paper” award from the American Nuclear Society Fusion Energy Division in 1998 and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2004. Menard was a recipient of the 2006 Kaul Prize for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research and Technology Development.
