Two Hudson Valley students have made it to the finals of the prestigious Regeneron Science Talent Search.

The 40 finalists were reduced from the original 300.

Heading to the finals are Jashvi Desai, from Yorktown High School, and Khushi Karthikeyan, from Ardsley High School.

The finalists represent 35 schools across 15 states.

"I've looked up to these finalists since I was a freshman in high school," said finalist Jashvi Desai, "It's just shocking to me to be one of them now."

Jashvi focused her project on Neuroinflammatory Signatures and Prefrontal Mechanisms in long COVID.

"I noticed after the COVID pandemic that a lot of the people around me had experienced certain neurological symptoms," she said, "I used 7-T MRI to look at the brains of certain COVID patients that had experienced neurological symptoms to see for each symptom how their brain was being affected in a structural sense."

Khushi's research was based on the Probing Potential Stellar Formation Pathways of Intermediate-Mass Black Holes.

In March, the two will travel to Washington, D.C., to present their work and compete for a place in the top 10.

They are competing for nearly $2 million, with a top prize of $250,000 to further their scientific education.