Paul D. Schreiber High School has produced eight Intel Science Talent semifinalists this spring, tying for second place with Stuyvestant High School of Manhattan. This marks the fourth consecutive year that Schreiber High School has been in the top five schools in the country.

The students include Christopher Havasy, Sarah Silvergleid, Emily Sorg and Nicholas Werle, who worked with teacher Phyllis Serfaty in the area of science research; David Golub and Andrew Gross, who worked with teacher Tina Gallagher in math research; Carmiel Schickler, who worked with teacher Dr. David O'Connor in social science research and Gillian Grogan, who did an independent research project.

Students in the Schreiber research programs spend two years on individual, intensive projects. What exactly does this mean? Consider Nick Werle's project: "A Template-Free Synthesis of Nano Crystalline ZSN5." This means that Nick worked on a new way of creating smaller molecular sieves, which are used industrially and in oil refining. All of the other students' projects also reached important conclusions from new perspectives. Sarah Silvergleid did her project at Columbia University in Manhattan, administering tests to monitor the vision of patients with multiple sclerosis. Andrew Gross did a project that deals with improving a technique of chemical analysis using lasers, which has applications as widespread as homeland security and space exploration. Carmiel Schickler used data sets reflecting violent conflicts from 1700 through 1920 to show how international leadership change and shifts in relative power affect violent conflicts. Gillian Grogan worked on a physics project using europium sulfide sandwiched between either copper or palladium. Her observations of the tunneling phenomenon could be applied to computer memory storage.

Each student wins $1,000 individually and an equal amount for Schreiber High School. Forty finalists will be announced this week and will compete in Washington, D.C., for additional prizes, including a first-place award of $100,000.