Northport High School’s Mathematics Student of the Month was recognized at the district’s board of education meeting on Oct. 3. 

Senior Danielle Levanti’s passion for math began in ninth grade when she joined the Institute of Creative Problem Solving and it only grew from there. In 10th grade, she joined the school’s Rotary Youth Leadership Association, where she has served as both a facilitator, and now, a senior leader. 

Upon entering 11th grade, Danielle soared to new heights when she became a member of the Institute of Merit, where she learned varying strategies that, over the past two years, have helped her write numerous math research papers. She recently shared some of those techniques with several Northport High School teachers, marking the district’s first role reversal.  

For the past two years, Danielle has also been working as a researcher in the Block Allocation Group at Brookhaven National Lab. Over the years, she has collaborated alongside scientists, teachers and students to develop the National Synchrotron Light Source II – a particle accelerator that generates extremely bright X-rays. The team used an Automated Macromolecular Crystallography beamline, specialized for investigating the structure and function of proteins in biomedical research, to refine the structure of TrmD, a protein related to Lyme disease. This finding has implications for drug discovery and has been submitted for publication in the Worldwide Protein Data Bank. 

After high school, Danielle plans to major in bio engineering at her first choice, Cornell University. 

“I feel like it’s the natural path for me,” she said.