I always loved career day as an elementary student because I was able to share that my dad was a rocket scientist. Maybe he was not the astronaut flying into space or sitting in the control room, but I believed he had the ‘coolest’ job because he was the engineer – designing new space cameras . . . My passion for innovation was somewhat out of the ordinary because I was facing a challenge that was very real for me. At age 5, I was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition that results in severe visual impairment. Through my various Google and WebMD queries, I found that there were limited answers relating to the diagnosis and treatment of my condition. However, as I matured I realized that I did not need to wait for other scientists to find the answers: I could find them myself . . . After several all-night brainstorming sessions, I approached my research teacher Mr. Kurtz one morning to present my idea. I said that I wanted to invent a computer program that could predict the effects of mutations in disease. Read more...
Physarum polycephalum is an organism that one cannot help but find interesting. This single-celled amoeboid is able to self-organize and self-optimize without the help of any sort of central nervous system. It can find the shortest path connecting any number of food sources, “solve” mazes created by physical barriers, and create paths that avoid light. I was introduced to this organism by my mentor, a member of the Laboratory of Mathematical Physics at The Rockefeller University in Manhattan, New York. The general theme that connected the research within this laboratory was optimized networks; researchers worked on everything from the venation in plant leaves to the structure of rat brains. There was no work being done with Physarum polycephalum at the time, but my mentor cited its venation patterns as examples of optimized network . . . I began to wonder if I could take these [existing] mathematical models a step further by creating a computer program that could model the organism’s behavior continuously rather than discretely. This would not only provide useful insight into the optimization process itself, but would also be an educational exercise in creating a dynamic simulation from a static model . . . Perhaps the most valuable lesson I learned from conducting research throughout high school is the importance of stupidity. This phrase, borrowed from the title of an essay by Martin Schwartz, means that before you can focus on discovering, you have to free yourself from the burden of knowing. You will almost inevitably encounter roadblocks throughout the research process, and it is important not to let the feeling of stupidity discourage you from continuing. The truth is comforting: when one is conducting research, he or she is not expected to have the answers. We enter the unknown in the pursuit of knowledge, and what we discover brings us closer to understanding. Read more...
It is difficult to say when my passion for mathematics was first kindled. I have liked doing number problems and logic puzzles for as long as I can recall: one of my earliest memories is of using toothpicks to guide a brave mouse across shark-infested waters to steal the king's cheese (a challenge found in The Puzzle Book, which I owned when I was younger). My interest was further strengthened by participation in math competitions and a math club organized by Professor Ron Ji at IUPUI. However, soon after entering high school, I began to feel that I would like to go beyond solving contest problems and engage in the creative process of mathematical discovery . . . Solutions to the Yang-Baxter equation, an important equation in mathematics and physics, lead to matrix representations of a collection of all braids known as the braid group. Such representations have applications in fields such as knot theory, statistical mechanics, and, most recently, quantum information science. In particular, representations with a special property called unitarity are desired because they generate braiding quantum gates. These quantum analogs of classical gates are actively studied in the ongoing quest to build a topological quantum computer that could be exponentially more powerful than our computers today. A generalized form of the Yang-Baxter equation was proposed a few years ago by Eric Rowell et al. By solving the generalized Yang-Baxter equation, we found new unitary braid group representations. Our representations give rise to braiding quantum gates and thus have the potential to aid in the construction of useful quantum computers. Read more...
I am especially interested in Colony Collapse Disorder (“CCD”) as an environmental issue as well as an economic and policy issue. Within the United States honeybees contribute to the success of one-third of U.S. agriculture; furthermore these insects are responsible for countless jobs and many billions of dollars in revenue. They are the unsung heroes of harvests of numerous fruits, berries, and nuts, and therefore crucial to the long-term viability of our global economy. I have taken a special liking to these insects and, through my research; I hoped to find creative ways to enable the species to survive the current challenges to their existence. During the summer of 2010, I had a unique opportunity to conduct original research at Michigan State University in the entomology lab of Dr. Zachary Y. Huang through the High School Honors Science Program. My work focused on the impact of time on the duration of honeybees’ memory in “relay learning.” My field research required working in close proximity to thousands of bees to investigate degradation of memory as a possible cause of CCD . . . My advice to students who are undertaking a project combining mathematics and science would be to never give up on your initial goals. Although you may have to tweak your methodology, you should never give up on answering your initial questions. My research encountered several stumbling blocks related to replicating conditions across trials, which I was able to overcome through perseverance and enthusiasm. The honeybees were not returning to the hives, and after careful observation, I realized it was due to the placement of the hives. Read more...
When one asks a group of students at any school in the country if they have ever been involved in and/or affected by bullying almost every hand shoots up into the air. Such instances demonstrate the rising incidence of bullying in each community, the country, and throughout the world. Although it is obvious that bullying occurs in schools, teachers, the adults closest to the problem, have been avoided by students. Prior studies already established statistics indicating that teachers are the last group to be approached, followed by family and friends, in cases of students who witness bullying. This study explores the reasons behind this phenomenon and proposes the question “why do students choose not to approach teachers about bullying?” . . . Although behavioral science may not appear to have much math involved, math actually plays a major role in the research and especially in data analyses. Mathematics, and particularly statistics, was utilized to analyze data in the form of correlation analyses, Independent T-tests, and Analyses of Variance. Behavioral science, although dealing with human subjects and their interactions with others, still involves testable explanations based on logic and facts. Mathematic analyses and statistical decisions were paramount to the interpretation of results; I was able to form valid conclusions from the data and offer explanations as to why students are unwilling to approach teachers about bullying situations. Read more...
Despite my enthusiasm for science, I was initially nervous about conducting research, and I was hesitant to apply for the Research Science Institute. I had always assumed that meaningful research was in the domain of Ph.D. professors and graduate students, far outside the reach of high school students like me. Given the complexity and dangers of nuclear energy, I thought that this would be especially true for the area in which I was assigned to work. However, while a professor’s research in general can be highly complex, there are often parts with which high school students can assist. Research certainly poses challenges and can be difficult, but I advise that you do not discount it simply due to lack of experience . . . Compared to fossil fuel-powered plants, nuclear reactors can extract a tremendous amount of energy from fuel through a process known as nuclear fission. A conventional nuclear reactor can provide roughly 360,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per kilogram of uranium used; in comparison, coal-fired plants generate about 3 kilowatt-hours per kilogram of fuel. However, an even larger amount of energy remains unused, as conventional nuclear reactors only use about 5% of their fuel (1). The remainder of the fuel – along with radioactive products of fission – is disposed of as nuclear waste . Read more...
I saw the letter “E,” big, black and bold. “Now read me line six,” the nurse said, pointing to a row of blurry rectangles. I squinted and took my best educated guess, but the nurse frowned, scribbling a note on her clipboard. The second week of first grade, I had failed my first test. The school vision test was the one (and usually only) exam I failed each year. It became somewhat of a routine, seeing the school nurse, squinting at the fuzzy shapes on the eye chart, finding myself in the optometrist’s office a week later. The doctor would check my eyes, shake his head, and write out a prescription for new glasses . . . Two years ago, I stumbled upon something that would change my life. At a gathering of family friends, my mother noticed that one of her friend’s daughters, who used to wear glasses, was now free of spectacles. The casual comment of “How do your contacts feel?” revealed that the girl was not, in fact, wearing any contacts. Not at the time, anyway – she had been fitted with overnight orthokeratology (ortho-k) contact lenses, a special type of rigid contact lens that is worn at night. During sleep these lenses reshape the cornea, and during the day the molded cornea effectively acts like a natural contact lens, eliminating the need for glasses or contacts during the day . . . I did some more research online and found that not all contact lenses are created equal when it comes to protein deposition. Most studies showed that soft lenses (such as those worn during the day) tend to attract more protein than hard lenses (such as those used in ortho-k). This seemed to answer the question of why I could wear these ortho-k lenses, but not my previous soft contacts, at night. As I was about to leave the page, however, I came across another article, this one saying that tears in the eye at night actually have a very different protein composition from those of the day. I looked back at the previous articles comparing hard and soft contacts, and found that all of them were indeed done during the day, none of them at night. There was a void here, one that this project begins to fill. Read more...
My interest in cardiovascular health stems from a range of factors. There is currently a health epidemic in the United States: our largely unhealthy lifestyles, fatty and high-cholesterol diet, and lacking exercise, combine with genetic factors, contribute to some of the highest levels of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. In fact heart disease is prevalent in most developed and some developing countries, contributing to more deaths then cancer and HIV combined, worldwide. Heart disease causes are often misleading; for instance, obesity has been linked to heart disease for decades, yet many who suffer from cardiovascular ailments are slim and hardly fit this profile. In the past several decades, elevated blood cholesterol das been linked to heart disease. Though cholesterol is essential for numerous physiological functions, it is well documented that the long-term effects of elevated levels of plasma cholesterol pose a significant health risk and is causal to diseases including angina, cardiovascular disorders, and diabetes. However, the short-term effect of elevated plasma cholesterol was unknown, and this is what I set out to determine . . . My project was unique due to several reasons. First of all, the study was the first that set out to determine the role of elevated cell plasma membrane cholesterol on water and gas transport into the red blood cell. Second, the study was designed to determine the molecular underpinnings of the impairments of elevated plasma membrane cholesterol, and furthermore, new and novel approaches were used to conduct the study. Read more...
I come from an agricultural family: one side of my family owns a 200-acre farm in Oregon and the other owns a plant nursery adjacent to my backyard in New York. Between living right next to the nursery and spending two or three weeks a year on the Oregon farm, I have been exposed to agricultural and horticultural issues my entire life. When report after report of acid-resistant E. coli outbreaks hit the news over the past few years, I became quite interested in the issue as a result of my agricultural background (and my “foodie” interests). I was inspired to read more about this problem and the many other problems of today’s increasingly industrialized food system . . . After working through many tutorials, during my second summer in the lab my mentor allowed me to take on a project of my own choosing and design. It was quite a daunting task to pick out a system that I wanted to study, but eventually I picked a protein system that was right in line with my agricultural interests. I chose to use the computational techniques I had learned to study a protein involved in the acid-resistance of E. coli, one of the biggest threats to the safety of our food system today. Read more...
How many times does a child hear his or her parent say, “turn your phone off before going to bed” or “don’t sleep with your phone on next to you” or “stop texting at night because you won’t get enough sleep”? I know I’ve heard those words countless times. But, I’ve always wondered if using my phone, or any other technological device, could actually hinder me from getting the best quality sleep I can get. This is what led me to develop my present study for the Intel Science Talent Search competition. I was curious as to whether or not there was truth to what my parents had been saying to me for all these years . . . One word of advice for those who are interested in undertaking a project combining science and mathematics would be to choose a topic of interest. What kept me going and helped me to focus on my task was the fact that I was eager to find out if my hypotheses were true – I was genuinely interested in my topic. I think that having a firm interest in one’s research is the best way to ensure success. Read more...
Most people, especially teenagers, do not know HIV as anything more than an STD and that we are to avoid being infected . . . Past research has shown that the highest percentage of HIV infected patients lies in East Africa. Research has also shown that the HIV population of the United States is rapidly growing. Like all humans, my childhood played a major role in the shaping of my current personality. I personally spent my childhood in Kenya where I witnessed the effects of such a cruel virus. These sights and experiences were embedded in my mind until I moved to the United States in high school and decided to pursue my interested in the virus . . . This study was conducted to research the impact of culture and gender on the resilience of HIV infected patients. It was hypothesized that males would be more resilient than females. It was also hypothesized that it would be more difficult for Africans to cope with being HIV infected than it would be for Americans. Read more...
Autism is a mental disorder that impairs the mental and social development of children on their way to adulthood. Not everyone with autism has the same severity of symptoms and therefore researchers refer to the variance of the disorder as autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). In recent years, there has been an increase in children diagnosed with autism (Groom, 2009). Reasons for such a peak in diagnoses range from a vaccine link to simply just more accurate methods of testing (Downs, 2009). No matter the cause, children with ASDs need assistance in progressing as individuals throughout life. . . The topic of autism is very personal to me. Due to the fact that my brother has autism, I have always been intrigued by the progress he has made with behavioral intervention. I want to help others with ASDs communicate and express their feelings just like any regular person has the luxury of doing. By increasing positive behavior in children with autism, they would gain the ability to socialize with normal peers and enjoy the same experiences a normal functioning child goes through. Numerous types of interventions have been implemented to aid kids with autism. These interventions span various settings and conditions, which creates a sense of spontaneity that these kids would otherwise lack. Decreasing bad behavior in kids with autism during school hours allows teachers to maximize the children’s potential . . . There is a great demand for successful interventions in the realm of behavioral intervention for children with autism. Much attention has been paid to behavioral interventions such as applied behavioral analysis (ABA) and the Lovaas method, but such a strict, rigorous method can be very hard on the parents. The treatment in this experiment is known as a social story technique, and it can be a lot less time-intensive and therefore a very useful tool for parents if it is effective. Read more...
Since I have always loved both math and science, I was eager to integrate the two fields by conducting a medical research project in applied mathematics. Within the medical field, what inspired me to study cancer were the deaths of my great-grandmother and great-aunt, as well as the death of my former teacher, math team coach, and research mentor, Iftimie Simion, who helped me come to view math not merely as a subject in school, but rather as a beautiful puzzle. His passion for mathematics, coupled with his tragic death, inspired me to research cancer with the hope of improving both tumor detection and treatment . . . A greater quantitative understanding of tumor growth is essential to improve cancer screening and treatment. Using a sample of 345 breast cancer patients from California, a novel algorithm was developed to propose a new mathematical model of tumor growth, utilizing essential information from the pre-detection period . . . My advice for other high school research students would be to enjoy every part of the research process. Research something you love, and rather than feeling discouraged when you face a challenge or unexpected result, look at it as an opportunity to learn, grow, and work with even greater excitement and determination in search of an answer. Read more...
In 1997, The New York Times quoted a Bronx High School of Science administrator regarding the then- surprising increase in behavioral science honorees in the prestigious Westinghouse (now Intel) Science Talent Search competition: '’ 'It [behavioral science] does provide another outlet for some students whose strength may not be in empirical science and math,’' said the chairwoman of the school's biology department” (“A Fine Hour For Squishy Sciences”, NYT 2/16/97). Oh really? I thought my diverse fifteen hundred subject sample population and multiple analysis of covariance-based statistical analyses were pretty darned scientific. Silly me. I was also impressed with the way my friend at a local school developed and piloted her own instruments in two languages, using factor analysis and Cronbach’s alpha. A professor in California has asked permission to use the instruments in her own future research among Latino/a adolescents. It’s been fifteen years since the Times article – which otherwise offered a very positive review of all the wonderful work being done by young social scientists. Hopefully, we’re all past this squishy science / hard science nonsense. At heart, I’m a physicist. Nothing I’ve read in the last three years has excited me more than last week’s “Higgs boson” discovery, but at 16 or 17, I lacked both the expertise and the opportunity to talk my way into an internship in Geneva. Social science represented an important area where I could both apply and develop my skills to an important project – one that could actually make a tangible difference to girls not much younger than myself . . . Has the movement to reform middle grade education had unexpected social consequences for preteen girls struggling with self-esteem, body and weight issues? This study examined body-consciousness and sociocultural appearance attitudes among 1537 girls in seven different towns with three different grade groupings: Middle School (K-5/6-8), Modified Middle School (K-4/5-8); and Junior High (K-6/7-8). Do grade groupings within school districts affect the age at which girls become body-conscious? Do girls in Middle School districts report worse body image than those in Junior High districts? Read more...
In order to build my own guitar I clearly needed to research how I would go about the task. Thus began, unbeknownst to me, my first true application of the scientific method that would eventually inspire me to become an Intel participant. I researched multiple designs in order to create something that felt both original and practical and then I made detailed lists of the necessary supplies. I collected materials from around my house, online, and occasionally even the garbage can. I scrounged everywhere for the parts, all the while keeping within a tight budget. Sometimes I even had to create parts rather than purchase them. With the help of my own dad, I learned to create a functioning circuit, wire the pick-ups, solder the wires to the pots and capacitors, and hook up all the electronics to the input . . . I spent countless hours in my garage toiling in the heat. Seven in the morning and I’d be there, surrounded by a fog of paint fumes, diligently constructing amidst my clutter of scattered materials. But that was just it. It was my clutter, my mess, which would eventually transform into my guitar . . . Thus, in order to conduct my research project I needed to master statistics. Encouraged by the research I had conducted on guitar models and designs, and the knowledge that I had asked my dad to show me how to create a functioning circuit, I sought help from the mathematics department in my school. I scoured the library and pestered my math teachers until I felt I had a firm understanding of the basics of statistics and modeling. I discovered a completely unfamiliar branch of mathematics and I learned it with gusto. Read more...
University of Chicago
Professor David Mazziotti
Editor