Buffalo Grove Teen Conducts Computer Research in Israel

Itamar Allali of Buffalo Grove, a senior at Adlai E. Stevenson High School, spent the summer in Israel with teens of many different nationalities but never felt more at home. The common denominator, he says, was a shared love of science. 

Itamar, 17, was among 44 teens worldwide to participate in SciTech, a three-week international science and technology research camp at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. Participants hailed from nine U.S. states as well as Israel, Europe and Canada. “We all come from different places, but through our shared interest in science we have had the chance to meet and discover how similar we all are,” says Itamar, whose family is from Israel.

Now in its 20th year, SciTech provides teens the chance to carry out research in a broad range of fields alongside accomplished Israeli researchers while experiencing life in Israel.  Weekends, he and his SciTech friends toured Israel. Weekdays, he was hard at work in the Technion laboratory, researching a way to cool electronics when they heat up. Most computers have a built-in fan; but as technology progresses, computer chips get smaller and hotter and the fans no longer work, he explains. Itamar and his team attached a metal device called a heat sink to a microchip, and ran water through the device to cool the chip.

“I have thought about going into academic research as a profession. Being at the Technion and being able to taste that life, has really helped me realize that it is for me,” he says. 

Itamar is a member of Stevenson’s Talented Young Mathematician team, the Intramural Racquetball Club and head of his school chapter of the French Honor Society.

— Submitted by American Technion Society