Two Jericho High School students have won the grand prize in an international competition asking them to celebrate unsung heroes.

Sophomores Rayan Hasan and Jay Patel won the $6,000 grand prize in the 2025 Discovery Award competition coordinated by the Kansas-based Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes. The annual contest challenged students to create research-based projects on individuals “whose courage and contributions have profoundly impacted history but remain largely unrecognized,” according to the center.

Hasan and Patel created a documentary on late physician and researcher Alice Hamilton, who “shaped health and safety policies for American workers,” according to center.

“Jericho’s students continue to show the incredible potential of young people to uncover and share stories that inspire positive change,” Norm Conard, the center’s CEO, said in a statement.

Other winners included Jericho high schoolers Chloe Hu and Ara Woo, who won the $2,500 Outstanding High School Project Award for a documentary on late civil rights activist Yuri Kochiyama. Jericho Middle School student Ananya Kavi won a $500 Certificate of Excellence Award for creating a website on May Edward Chinn, a physician whose work advanced cancer detection.

The Jericho school district also won the Outstanding School Award for “the dedication of its students and educators to discovering unsung heroes,” the center said.

“We are proud of our students for winning top honors while elevating overlooked changemakers,” said Eric Sundberg, curriculum associate for social studies, business education and libraries for the Jericho school district. “These skills and the understanding that comes from telling someone else’s story are exactly what strong democracies need.”

EAST NORTHPORT

New principal

Julie Bilello has been appointed principal of Harley Avenue Primary School in the Elwood school district. She replaced Denise Toscano, who retired.

Bilello was assistant principal at Elwood Middle School since 2021, and before that spent 16 years as a special-education teacher at the school as well as in the Lynbrook and Plainview-Old Bethpage school districts.

“My goal is to create an environment where every child feels valued,” Bilello said in a statement.

EAST SETAUKET

Gold medalist

Ward Melville High School junior Jason Yin earned two gold medals this summer in the International Earth Science Olympiad, a competition coordinated by the International Geoscience Education Organization.

The competition, held in China, drew students from more than 30 countries and included two group projects and several individual exams. Yin won gold for an individual exam and for a hydrology-themed group project, according to Ward Melville.

To be selected for the competition, Yin first earned a spot in an Oklahoma science program, where he excelled on the program’s final exam, school officials said.

LINDENHURST

UPK Center

The Lindenhurst school district recently unveiled a new center that consolidates its nearly 300 pre-kindergartners in one location.

The 21-classroom Kellum UPK Center, is in the Kellum Street School, which was closed due to declining enrollment in 1983. Its occupants in recent years have included a some prekindergarten students and the special-needs preschool Just Kids, the district said.

“This facility gives us the opportunity to streamline curriculum and instruction, and provide early intervention supports,” Assistant Superintendent Kimberly Boccanfuso said in a statement.

By Michael R. Ebert

michael.ebert@newsday.com

Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.