Within the past month, 18-year-old Samantha Garvey has endured homelessness, been named a semifinalist for the 2012 Intel Science Talent Search and traveled  to Washington, D.C. for the State of the Union Address.
Her family lost their home on Dec. 31, 2011, and on New Year’s Day she found herself and the rest of her family moving into a local shelter, where they lived for three weeks.
But this does not mean she stopped going to school and doing her research at Stony Brook University. It meant the exact opposite.
“When she works in the lab, it is her way mentally out of reality,” Rebecca Grella, who is getting her Ph.D at Stony Brook, for her work with exotic plant species, said.
With the help of Dianna Padilla, professor and lab mentor for the Ecology and Evolution department, Grella brought Garvey into the lab at Stony Brook three years ago.
“Dianna has also been pivotal person in Samantha’s life, with the two of us pushing her to reach the highest heights,” Grella said.
Padilla and Grella got the Toyota Tapestry Grant of $10,000 in 2010 that helped with Garvey’s research and other students into the lab in Life Sciences on campus.
“This grant gave us the ability to bridge the gap between university and high school and bring students into Stony Brook’s lab,” Grella said.
Samantha was interested in mussels—which she observed in Flax Pond in Old Field—and how they adapt to their environment around predators. Her results illustrated that mussels settle where they are more threatened, and their shells grow thicker because of the presence of predators.
Garvey’s eagerness intrigued Padilla when they met over three years ago.
“She was smart, eager and really focused on learning how to do research,” Padilla said.
Congressman Steve Israel was the one to bring her into the national light after reading about her in Newsday, which coincided with her semifinalist Intel announcement.
He took Garvey to the State of the Union Address on Jan. 24.
She left New York at 6:30 a.m. that morning and went straight to meet with Dr. John Holdren, assistant to the President for Science and Technology. She went on to take a tour of the U.S. Capitol.
She then had dinner at the House Chamber and listened to Obama’s address.
“For Samantha, it’s important to see how policy-making works into the field of science,” Grella, who joined Garvey for the trip to Washington, said.
Israel gave a statement on why he brought Garvey to the State of the Union.
“I hope my colleagues understand that we cannot praise Samantha’s achievements while also advocating for slashing education budgets that allow students like Samantha, who face difficult circumstances through no fault of their own, to succeed,” Israel said.
Social services found her family a three-bedroom-home, which they moved into the week of Jan. 23.
Even though she was not  honored as a finalist in the Intel competition, Grella still believes in Garvey.
“She’s still a winner,” Grella said. “I would say she’s made it to the Super Bowl.”