Samantha Garvey, Homeless Teen Up For Prestigious Intel Science Prize

Samantha Garvey, an 18-year-old senior at Brentwood High School on Long Island, was selected as a semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent Search, the premier science competition for high school students.  Her research concluded that the ribbed mussels native to the Long Island Sound (Geukensia demissa) were able to detect chemicals that predators in their waters released (in this case, it was the recently arrived Asian shore crabs, Hemigrapsus sanguineus), which makes them produce thicker shells as a defense mechanism – a change that was noticeable after just 65 days of testing.

Throughout her 2.5 years of research, Samantha endured notable hardships.  Her parents were injured in a car accident last year and were hospitalized. Her father, a cabdriver, was able to recover quickly and keep driving, but her mother, a nurse’s assistant, could not work for nine months.  The eldest of three children, she and her family are newly homeless, evicted from their home on December 31st and living in a Suffolk County shelter. Despite these difficulties, Samantha maintains a 3.9 grade point average, is president of her school’s chapter of the National Honors Society, and is ranked 4th out of 433 students in her grade.  

Samantha hopes to attend Brown or Yale. She recently appeared on Ellen DeGeneres’s daytime talk show, where she was awarded a $50,000 scholarship, and AT&T also presented her with a scholarship of equal value on Wednesday.

Do you think Samantha’s setbacks gave her the motivation to succeed?