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Among Teen Scientists,Top award of $250,000 goes to Ana Humphrey of Virginia in nations oldest and most prestigious STEM competition for high school seniors
Top ten projects by these Teen Scientists tackle important global issues, such as management of infectious diseases, more efficient air travel, refugee migration patterns and space exploration
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Society for Science & the Public announced that Ana Humphrey, 18, of Alexandria, Virginia, won the top award in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, the nations oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors.
Forty Teen Scientists finalists were honored tonight at the annual Regeneron Science Talent Search awards gala. Regeneron provided awards totaling more than $1.8 million for the finalists, who were evaluated for their research projects, as well as their exceptional scientific and mathematical knowledge, problem-solving abilities and potential as future scientific leaders.
Model to determine the possible locations of exoplanets
Ana Humphrey won $250,000 for her mathematical model to determine the possible locations of exoplanets — planets outside our solar system — that may have been missed by NASAs Kepler Space Telescope. Hypotheses in the field say planetary formation creates dynamically packed systems, so Ana used her model to find unpacked spaces where as many as 560 new planets might fit and identified 96 locations as primary search targets.
Her research could aid our understanding of the formation of planets and inform our search for life in outer space. Ana is the first Hispanic first-place winner in 20 years.
Genetic makeup of HIV
Second place and $175,000 went to Samuel Weissman, 17, of Rosemont, Pennsylvania, for his project analyzing the genetic makeup of HIV in two patients on long-term anti-retroviral therapy to understand why they continued to have reservoirs of treatment-resistant HIV-infected cells.
Sams research suggests that HIV-infected cells both clonally expand and are killed, therefore forming a reservoir of infected cells, which expands our understanding of HIV and may impact future treatment approaches.
Theory to determine likelihood of a maximal event
Third place and $150,000 went to Adam Ardeishar, 17, of Alexandria, Virginia, for his project combining a classic previously unsolved math problem called the coupon collector problem with extreme value theory. The theory is used to determine the likelihood of a maximal event, such as a 1,000-year flood.
By integrating these two concepts, Adam developed a way to calculate the average maximum values of distributional datasets, which could be applied to predicting the expected amount of time for a given number of different randomly-timed events to occur.
I couldnt be prouder of this years Regeneron Science Talent Search top winners, who are already leading the way in scientific research and innovation, said Maya Ajmera, President and CEO of Society for Science & the Public, Publisher of Science News and 1985 Science Talent Search alum. Their talent, dedication and desire to make a difference in the world is commendable. Congratulations to Ana, I know her example will inspire other young people to get involved in STEM.
Other top honors from the competition include:
Fourth Place: Madeleine Yang of Beverly Hills, Michigan, received a $100,000 award for her work towards a faster and more effective way to manufacture vaccines for influenza, which she hopes one day might help researchers develop a universal vaccine for influenza – an illness that, along with its complications, kills hundreds of thousands of people around the world each year.
Fifth Place: Carolyn Beaumont of McLean, Virginia, received a $90,000 award for her studying of molten rock mixed with hot water and the resulting effect on the magmas viscosity. Her work may lead to a better understanding of volcanic eruptions.
Sixth Place: Samuel Ferguson of West Windsor, New Jersey, received a $80,000 award for his design of a blended wing body aircraft that is lighter and more fuel efficient than traditional tube and wing airplanes because the entire surface of the airplane, not just the wings, provides lift.
Seventh Place: Brent Perlman of Armonk, New York, received a $70,000 award for his project designing a process to induce photosynthesis in human stem cells, allowing them to produce their own oxygen, by inserting chloroplasts from spinach, which could have implications in the treatment of heart attack, stroke and cancer.
Eighth Place: Rachel Seevers of Lexington, Kentucky, received a $60,000 award for her project developing a Virtual Winglet, which works by ejecting high-speed air at the leading edge of the underside of a planes wingtip to potentially improve the stability and efficiency of the aircraft.
Ninth Place: Vincent Huang of Plano, Texas, received a $50,000 award for his computer model to better predict refugee migrations on a regional scale and tested his results using data from the 2015-2016 refugee crisis following the civil war in Burundi, Africa.
Tenth Place: Eshika Saxena of Bellevue, Washington, received a $40,000 award for creating a 3D-printed smartphone attachment and artificial intelligence software to automatically identify blood diseases.
Participation of Indo-American youths
About ten Indian American students were selected for the final round of this award.These are:-
Ayush Alag of The Harker School in San Jose, California, for the project “Computational DNA Methylation Analysis of Food Allergy Yields Novel 13-gene Signature to Diagnose Clinical Reactivity.”
Anjali Chadha of duPont Manual Magnet High School in Louisville, Kentucky, for her project “Development of a Fully Automated 3D Printed IoT Sensor for Arsenic Detection in Groundwater.
Navami Jain of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, for the project “Development of Integrated Ionic Liquid System for Simultaneous Pretreatment and Biomass Saccharification of Fermentable Sugars.
Aayush Karan of University School of Milwaukee in Wisconsin, for the project “Generating Set for Nonzero Determinant Links Under a Skein Relation.
Ananya Karthik of St. Francis High School in Mountain View, California, for the project “Ultrasonic Drug Uncaging from Polymeric Perfluoropentane Nanoparticles.”
Preeti Krishnamani of Charter School of Wilmington in Delaware, for the project “Effects of Silicon Amendments on the Concentration and Adsorption Properties of Iron-Oxides in Rice Paddy Soils.”
Chirag Kumar of Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, New York, for the project “A Machine Learning Approach to Estimating the Error in Satellite Sea Surface Temperature Measurements.”
Varun Kumar of Bergen County Academies in Hackensack, New Jersey, for the project “Dihydrotanshinone: A Pan-Therapeutic Treatment for Chemoresistance in Cancer.”
Eish Maheshwari of Herricks High School in New Hyde Park, New York, for the project “Design of a Red Blood Cell-Based Drug-Delivery Platform for Improving Curcumin Pharmacokinetics and Bioavailability via Reengineered Silica Nanoparticles.”
Ronak Roy of Canyon Crest Academy in San Diego, California, for the project “Smartphone-Controlled Portable Phoropter Powered by Variable Focal Length Liquid Lens.”
Eshika Saxena of Interlake High School in Bellevue, Washington, for the project “HemaCam: A Computer Vision-Enhanced Mobile Phone Imaging System for Automated Screening of Hematological Diseases with Convolutional Neural Networks.”
Ruhi Sayana of The Harker School in San Jose, California, for the project “Precision Care for Leukemia: Discovery of Novel Therapeutics for High-Risk ALL via Epigenetic and Computational Transcriptome Profiling.”
Aditi Singh of Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, New York, for the project “Descriptive and normative accounts of color localization performance in visual short-term memory.”
Amol Singh of Lynbrook High School in San Jose, California, for the project “STAC-STIC: Novel Computational Pipeline to Generate Digital Super-Resolution Static Representations of Pathology Slides.”
Madhav Subramanian of Jericho Senior High School in New York, for the project “ETM* is indispensable to endothelial behavior during tumor angiogenesis.”
Remaining 30 finalists each received $25,000
The remaining 30 finalists each received $25,000. These students will join the ranks of Science Talent Search alumni who have gone on to receive more than 100 of the worlds most esteemed science and math honors, including the Nobel Prize and the National Medal of Science, to start successful biotechnology and technology companies, and to change the world through their groundbreaking inventions. In total, Regeneron awarded $3.1 million in prizes through the Regeneron Science Talent Search 2019, including $2,000 to each of the top 300 scholars and their schools.
In 2017, Regeneron became the third sponsor of the oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors, now known as the Regeneron Science Talent Search following Westinghouse from 1942-1997 and Intel from 1998-2016.
Congratulations to this years Regeneron Science Talent Search top winners who embody true scientific and mathematical ingenuity, said George D. Yancopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., Co-Founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Regeneron, and a 1976 Science Talent Search top winner.
We are always inspired by the work of these talented young people, and this years winners have impressed us with their curiosity and desire to improve the world around them. My experience as a winner in the Science Talent Search changed my life and was an important early step on my path to a life devoted to using the power of science to do good. I hope it has the same impact on these young scientists, since now more than ever, we need brilliant minds like theirs to find solutions to our worlds most pressing challenges.
About the Regeneron Science Talent Search
The Regeneron Science Talent Search, a program of Society for Science & the Public since 1942, is the nations oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors. Each year, around 2,000 student entrants submit original research in critically important scientific fields of study and are judged by leading experts in their fields. Unique among high school competitions in the U.S. and around the world, the Regeneron Science Talent Search focuses on identifying, inspiring and engaging the nations most promising young scientists who are creating the ideas that could solve societys most urgent challenges.
In 2017, Regeneron became only the third sponsor of the Science Talent Search, increasing the overall awards distribution to better reward the best and brightest young minds. Through its 10-year, $100 million commitment, Regeneron nearly doubled the overall award distribution to $3.1 million annually, increasing the top award to $250,000 and doubling the awards for the top 300 scholars and their schools to $2,000 each to inspire more young people to engage in science.
Program alumni include recipients of the worlds most coveted science and math honors, including 11 National Medals of Science, five Breakthrough Prizes, 18 MacArthur Foundation Fellowships, two Fields Medals and 13 Nobel Prizes.
About Society for Science & the Public
Society for Science & the Public is dedicated to the achievement of young scientists in independent research and to public engagement in science. Established in 1921, the Society is a nonprofit whose vision is to promote the understanding and appreciation of science and the vital role it plays in human advancement. .
About Regeneron
Regeneron (NASDAQ: REGN) is a leading biotechnology company that invents life-transforming medicines for people with serious diseases.
