Roslyn ninth grade students won all three New York State awards in the 2023-24 eCybermission competition. The team of Orla Gajwani, Gefen Portnoy, and Dylan Sakaria won first place; Kaylin Cho, Amanda Li, and Carina Dai took second place; and Emilee Youn and Vivian Lin were awarded Honorable Mention.

The eCybermission competition challenges student teams to identify a problem in their community and design an empirical research project to investigate it. The students were supported by Dr. Allyson Weseley, who runs the high school research program, and some of the program’s experienced students who volunteer their time to coach younger students.

Members of the first place team will each receive $1000 savings bonds for their work on gendered stereotypes relating to brilliance. The second place team focused their research on how best to get study participants to answer sensitive demographic questions on anonymous surveys; each member of this team will get $500 savings bonds. Roslyn’s honorable mention winners will receive certificates for their work on how companies and charities can best work together on cause-related campaigns.

“I’m so proud of all our winners and so appreciative of our helpful juniors and seniors – Elle Kaplan, Cayden Shen, Mallory Sorkin, and Hanah Youn” said Dr. Weseley. “Hopefully, these early victories foreshadow much future success!”