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March 2, 1982

CITY'S STUDENTS WIN TOP 3 PRIZES IN A NATIONAL SCIENCE

COMPETITION
SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

New York City students won the top three prizes today in the annual Westinghouse Science Talent Search,
one of the most prestigious competitions in the nation for teen-age scientists.

Reena Beth Gordon of Brooklyn, who worked eight months on an experiment involving mathematics and
linguistics, was awarded the first-place $12,000 scholarship. Miss Gordon, 16 years old, is a senior at
Midwood High School in Brooklyn.

Ronald M. Kantor, 17, of the Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, won the second-place $10,000
scholarship for a study of nuclear fusion, and Ogan Gurel, a 17-year-old student at Stuyvesant High School in
Manhattan, won the third-place scholarship of $10,000 for an experiment in computer programming.

In her project for the contest, Miss Gordon developed a mathematical model to explain how people contend
with ambiguities of the English language.

She said in an interview that her linguistic research merged with her interest in mathematics and English. ''I've
always been fascinated with symbols, whether in math, language or music,'' she said.

Miss Gordon, who is ranked at the top of a class of 555 at Midwood, is an accomplished classical pianist and
speaks Hebrew fluently. She said that, despite her success today, she was not committed to science as a
lifework.

''Science isn't my only interest,'' she said. ''I took a course in law last year and really liked it. Just don't tell that
to the judges here.''

If she were to continue with science, Miss Gordon would be following a well-established pattern of success.
Since 1972, Nobel Prizes have been awared to five former winners of the Westinghouse program. The contest
is conducted by a nonprofit organization, Science Service, for Westinghouse Electric Corporation, the
sponsor.

The 40 national finalists were honored tonight with a dinner at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where
$74,500 in scholarships was divided among the 10 winners. The other 30 each received $500 cash awards.

Fifteen of the finalists were from New York State; six won scholarships. The other New York winners were
Noam David Elkies, 15, a student at Stuyvesant High School, eighth place; Saechin Kim of Long Island City,
ninth place, and Lynne Page Snyder of Smithtown, L.I., 10th place. Each received a $5,000 scholarship.

The finalists exhibited their projects at the National Academy of Science over the weekend. Winners were
selected after the finalists completed three days of interviews with a panel of eight jurors, all of them
prominent scientists, one a psychiatrist.

Miss Snyder, a senior at Smithtown High School West, who did biochemistry research at the State University
of New York at Stony Brook, illustrates the dedication, some say obsession, of many of the Westinghouse

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competitors.

When Miss Snyder's family moved to Rhode Island last year, she remained on Long Island, certain she would
not be able to find suitable facilities in New England for the blood-cell studies that today won her a
scholarship.

''I stayed,'' she said, ''because I just couldn't see giving up an opportunity like this.'' She now lives with family
friends and commutes three hours most weekdays between Smithtown and the lab at Stony Brook.

The domination of the Science Talent Search by New York State students was as popular topic of
conversation this year, as it has been in most the 41 years the contest has been held.

Judges and competitors alike agreed that New York's science-oriented high schools and its numerous research
laboratories provided New Yorkers with an advantage.

Robert Henderson, a Westinghouse spokesman, said New York teachers were known to encourage their best
students to begin preparing for the contest, known in scientific circles as the ''Nobel Farm Club,'' years in
advance.

Five of this year's finalists attend Stuyvesant High School, two the Bronx High School of Science. Other
winners in the contest were Helen Elaine Getto, 17, of Chicago, fourth, a $7,500 scholarship; Theron W.
Stanford, 17, of San Marino, Calif., fifth, $7,500; Mitchell Tsai, 15, of Kent, Ohio, sixth, $7,500; Niels P.
Mayer, 17, of Corona Del Mar, Calif., seventh, $5,000.

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