Posted by By Co-Editor in Chief, Josh Quinn
In August 2022, the sky turned amber and smoke rolled down the Shawangunk ridge covering the town of New Paltz and giving then sophomore Joseph Birnbaum a fledgling idea. Through hard work and guidance this idea would grow to become the award winning science research project titled “The Effects of Wildfire Intensity on the Regeneration of Pinus rigida Mill on the Shawangunk Ridge.”
According to Joe Birnbaum, the story of how he became the first New Paltz highschool student to win the nation’s oldest and most prestigious high school science competition began innocuously, during football practice.
“I was on the field during the first few weeks of training camp when smoke started rolling in from the fire,” Joseph explained, “it gave me the idea to study what was going on around me.”
Joe Birnbaum’s research was focused on the environment, more specifically, one species of tree found on the trails that countless New Paltz residents have wandered. Known as Pitch Pine, it is found throughout the North East of the United States of America, and is renowned for its hardiness, and ability to regenerate after forest fires, the topic of Joe’s project.
“Pitch Pine only reproduces after fire, so this was their crucial resprouting time, and I studied how the different fire intensities affected Pitch Pine generation,” Joseph Birnbaum explained.
Interestingly enough, Joseph’s work included research on the dwarf Pitch Pine, a subspecies of the Pitch Pine which is only found in Ulster County and the New Jersey Pine Barrens!
Beginning in 2023, Joseph Birnbaum would collect the data which was used in his paper. Totalling twenty-two “data-collection hikes” throughout 2023 and 2024, Joseph would trek 5 hours, rain or shine. Of course, Joseph was never alone on his numerous hikes. As he explained that usually he was, “with Gray Lobell for the 2023 season, and for the 2024 collection, “I would bring up a different friend, usually Marco Todaro.”
But it wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows at Sam’s Point, the location which Joe’s test sites were. Joe explained “we got caught in a couple rainstorms and small flash floods.” Yet that wasn’t the worst of his experiences on one of his numerous hikes.
According to Joe, his worst experience was with Marco Todaro when he stepped on a rattlesnake. Laughing he pointed out, “I almost had to be, you know, helicoptered out, which would not have been good, cause I was not on the trail at all.”
“I was on the field during the first few weeks of training camp when smoke started rolling in from the fire, it gave me the idea to study what was going on around me.”
Joseph Birnbaum
More than just data collection, Joe attributes his success to Justin Seweryn, the former science research teacher and current board member. “I genuinely believe that that’s the reason I’ve won everything,” Joseph explained.
Likewise Joe was thankful for the grant which New Paltz Foundation for Student Enhancement provided him, allowing him to pay for application fees in science fairs.
Besides the help from friends, faculty and advisors, Joseph Birnbaum’s success as a regeneron scholar is owed mostly to himself. Describing the experience as “five times harder than applying to college” Joe Birnbaum wrote more than 40 supplemental essays for the regeneron science talent search competition and was chosen out of a pool of two and a half thousand applicants for his outstanding research. Joe Birnbaum also won the number one spot at the greater capital region Science and Engineering Fair, which will allow him to go to the International Science and Engineering Fair.
In order to write those 40 essays, Joe had a special technique. “I deleted all my social media apps,” Joseph explained, and “effectively threw my phone as far away as possible and just wrote papers for eight hours a day, for two weeks straight.”
With an unparalleled work ethic, it’s no wonder Joseph Birnbaum was the first New Paltz High School student to win the regeneron science talent search competition.
Most importantly, Joseph is passionate about the environment and learning. As he is often heard emphatically proclaiming to his friends, “Science, science science!”
The Maroon 