Congratulations to John H. Glenn High School students – Jordan Alibrandi, Shayna Purow, Adiya Rehman, Alexandra Haddad, Trinity Hausch and Mary Luyster – who recently won first place overall in the Feinstein Institute of Northwell Health’s Medical Marvels competition. The team also brought home the award for best presentation.

The 10th grade students worked collaboratively to write a 15-page paper, depicting how they would have handled the vaccine hesitancy crisis that led to the measles outbreak in 2018, had they been New York State Department of Health officials.

Their paper touched on public health outreach through the use of public speakers and celebrities, the addition of vaccine information in the education system curriculum, as well as preventative measures. The key points of their paper were to implement laws for homeschooled students to earn a degree and the use of CRISPR technology to make vaccines that are more compliant to religious beliefs and medical exceptions.

The “medical marvels” competed against students from 30 schools from Long Island to Staten Island and Queens and is the first team to win both awards, according to team advisor Dr. Arnold Kamhi. As a group, the students will share a total of $2,100 on behalf of Northwell Health.

The Medical Marvels Program was developed to encourage Long Island high school students in 9th and 10th grades to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, according to Northwell Health’s website.

“I am very proud of these girls,” Dr. Kamhi said. “They worked hard on this and the hard work paid off.”