Brentwood seniors Alisha Ahsan, Stephanie Pizano are Long Island winners in National STEM Challenge

Brentwood High School seniors Alisha Ahsan and Stephanie Pizano will be among the latest additions to what educator Rebecca Grella calls the "multimillion dollar wall."

Ahsan, 17, and Pizano, 18, both working on solutions to nitrogen pollution in Long Island waters, on Monday were named among the 125 champions of the National STEM Challenge. That earns them a spot on the wall at the Brentwood campus which displays photos of high-achieving students, recipients of millions of dollars in scholarships who got their start in the research lab there.

As champions in the national competition, Ahsan and Pizano will be offered an all-expenses-paid trip in April to Washington, D.C., where they will present their research to leaders in government and business at the National STEM Festival.

For her project, Pizano invented a filter to reduce nitrogen pollution from fertilizer runoff and septic waste. Ahsan studied how nitrogen pollution negatively affects eelgrass and proposed a method to help restore the declining sea grass by gluing seeds onto live shellfish.

"It feels like all the hard work we've been putting in for the past few years were worth something great," said Pizano, who lives in Brentwood. Her brother, a Brentwood High School graduate pursuing a career in medicine, will accompany her to D.C. 

He is her "inspiration," and the reason she decided to join the research program at Brentwood, Pizano said.

Ahsan, who is from Bay Shore, said she's experienced a "roller coaster of emotions" since the students found out they won during their seventh period, with administrators in the room and Grella on FaceTime waiting to view the results.

"I'm happy that my project made it this far," she said, adding that she plans to celebrate with her family later.

Guests at the exhibition will include representatives from NASA, the Department of Defense and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among other groups, according to competition co-director Jenny Buccos. 

It's the first year of the competition, co-presented by the U.S. Department of Education and educational media company EXPLR. More than 2,500 entries were evaluated based on innovation and potential for positive impact, Buccos said. 

Half the finalists from New York came from the same lab-style classroom at Brentwood High, where educator and scientist Grella for nearly 20 years has helped students learn how to conduct their own research, often engaging other scientists to help mentor teens in the class.

Grella is currently serving as an educator for the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator fellowship program, but has continued advising her students.

The research program helps engage students “with scientists who are doing science and know what the standards are, and instills in them those real expectations of what is involved in doing science,” said Dianna Padilla, a mentor at the Brentwood lab and a professor with Stony Brook University’s Department of Ecology and Evolution.

Students leave the program prepared for college-level STEM courses and research, but more than that, the skills they walk away with will help “no matter what” their career is, she said.

The Brentwood lab has also seen consistent success in prestigious science competitions, including the Regeneron Science Talent Search, with a semifinalist in 2023 and two the previous year. One of the semifinalists in 2022 went on to the finals, and there was another finalist in 2019.

Two other seniors at Brentwood High, Ariel Alexis Miranda and Amanda Sanchez, both 17, also were finalists in the National STEM Challenge this winter. The other Long Island finalist in the competition was Sudarshan Padmanaban, 17, a senior at Smithtown High School West. 

Jennifer Costa, science department chair at Brentwood High, highlighted the hard work Ahsan and Pizano put into their winning projects, working on research — like other students in the program — over school breaks, after hours and between classes.

“The work and dedication that [Grella] has put in is really the driving force behind all of this. But then you get a group of kids who have always been told, ‘You’re from Brentwood, you can’t.’ And they realize, ‘Yes, we can,’ ” Costa said.

“They overcome because of that heart and soul and hard work," she said. "And that's what makes this lab as special as it is.”

Ahsan also will be presenting her research at the Long Island Sound Summit, while Pizano is in the final rounds for an opportunity at bringing her project to the International Science & Engineering Fair in Los Angeles. 

By Brianne Ledda

brianne.ledda@newsday.com@brianne_ledda

Brianne Ledda covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. She previously covered Southold and Greenport for The Suffolk Times and is a graduate of Stony Brook University.