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April 2007
Becoming America's Best
Student’s Science Project Gains National Attention
Henry High Senior Awarded $20,000 College Scholarship
Sarah Silverstein, a senior at Henry High, continues to win accolades for her science project, which studied the stress levels experienced by first-year dental school students. She was one of four sweepstakes winners at the San Diego Greater Science and Engineering Fair, earning her a place at the 57th Annual Intel International Science and Engineering Fair Sweepstakes being held May 13-19, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. On April 16, it was announced that she was awarded a $20,000 college scholarship in the Young Epidemiology Scholars (YES) Competition, one of the nation’s most prestigious and influential high school science competitions.

Sarah was among 60 high school students selected out of more than 700 entrants nationwide to compete in the finals held in the nation’s capital. The YES Competition, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and administered by the College Board, is designed to spur students’ interest in the field of public health, specifically epidemiology. YES competitors each developed a research project in which they identified a health problem, gathered data about that problem, and addressed the problem based on the data they gathered. Sarah’s project was entitled “A Longitudinal Study of Stress in First Year Dental Students.”

An aspiring orthodontist, Sarah found extremely high levels of stress in first-year dental students, based on a study of nearly 300 first-year students at four dental schools. “Knowledge of how stress affects performance and health and how it changes over time can be used by schools to counsel first year students and to stimulate the implementation of stress reduction programs,” Sarah said.