Sensitive crop regions are constantly under environmental stresses that foster plentiful plant disease. Basil plants, for instance, have been victims of Fusarium oxysporum (F.o.) wilt for decades, where growth conditions have stimulated progression of this disease, and subsequent crop destruction. A simple and effective treatment that would eradicate F.o wilt, while promoting overall plant growth, is needed. Metallic nanoparticles (NPs) have shown to improve plant health and overall crop yield, due to systemic movement through the plant’s root system, where the nutritional value of metallic nanoparticles is fully realized.

One of the best presents I have ever received was a book entitled Girls Think of Everything on the day of my fifth grade graduation. Girls Think of Everything chronicles various women who have made world changing scientific discoveries. This book inspired my clueless, ten year old self to one day have such an impact on the world. Thus my passion for research began and has continued to influence my high school and college interests.

A progressively neurodegenerative disease, Alzheimer’s disease presents a serious emotional and physical cost to patients and their families today. In industrialized countries, the increasing overall age of the population creates a large group of people at risk for Alzheimer’s disease, so it is imperative that a cure is developed soon. However, new treatments are often too large in size to cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and thus do not localize to regions of the brain well.

For visualizing the simulated electron-transfer (ET) dynamics with enhanced depth perception, I further built an immersive visualization system using a commodity virtual-reality platform and a game engine. My immersive simulation results reveal novel nonequilibrium phase transitions with which Shewanella efficiently responds to a change in its electrochemical environment. These results shed useful light on boosting the efficiency of Shewanella-based microbial fuel cells by increasing the ET rate, in order to produce electricity and water from sewage toward solving the global energy and environmental problems.

I came across an article on organic solar cells during the my time in the Garcia Research Program at Stony Brook University this past summer and was instantly fascinated by the versatility and possible uses of these devices. Imagine abundant, cheap solar cells being integrated around the world! Intrigued by the idea of using plastics to capture solar energy, I did more research into this technology. After thorough reading, I found that a significant limitation of these devices was the narrow range over which they could absorb light.

I began researching how mutations occur within cells. I focused on using computational chemistry techniques to advance the study of cancer prevention by analyzing protein kinases for therapeutics. I chose to study the NF-kappaB protein family because dysregulation of the NF-kappaB pathway has been linked to various cancers and autoimmune diseases. After reading literature about the protein family, I discovered that the NF-kappaB pathway is composed of two paths. I learned that, while the classical pathway is well-known, the alternative pathway is not.

Ever since I was little, my parents have constantly taken me to the Museum of Natural History in New York City. As soon as I rushed through the old wooden doors of the building, I rushed past the dinosaurs, down the stairs, and ran down the hallway to find myself standing in front of the gigantic blue whale. Marine creatures have always inspired me; they’re always out of sight, yet so fascinating .

Climate change involves complex interactions and changing likelihoods of diverse impacts (IPCC, 2014). In recent decades, changes and variations in climate impacting global agriculture sustainability and food security has been an important concern for our Earth family. Based on my summer internship in the Global Environment and Natural Resources Institute (GENRI), George Mason University, I was luck having the opportunity for working on analysis of climate change and assessment of climate impacts on agriculture under the supervision by my research mentor.

Recent experimental studies have shown how the quantum mechanism of electronic coherence is essential in the efficient energy transfer systems of the photosynthetic FMO complex found in green sulfur bacteria [1-3]. The FMO protein structure consists of a central magnesium atom surrounded by three identical monomers, each embedded with seven bacteriochlorophyll chromophore molecules, with an eighth additional bacteriochlorophyll chromophore between each of the three monomers [4]. The FMO acts as a mediator, efficiently facilitating the energy transfer from the light-harvesting antennae, known as chlorosomes, to the reaction center where the energy conversions of photosynthesis take place.

When I was in the third grade, ten years ago, my mother constantly felt dizzy and tired. She finally sought medical attention and her blood was drawn for testing, but it wasn’t until a week later that she was told that her hemoglobin levels were so low that she had to go to the hospital immediately. After a stressful series of months following some procedures, including many more blood draws from my anemic mother, she recovered and was able to return to her normal activities … I became fascinated with the … optical properties of blood we could leverage to conduct a wider range of tests … My peers have informed me that the humanities are ever popular because “there’s more than one right answer,” so you can never be wrong.

My research began with a news article about PCB pollution in the Hudson River and its effects on a small bottom feeding fish called the Atlantic tomcod. Although this article was geared more toward evolutionary adaptations as a result of environmental pollution, I was drawn to its subtle elements of studying chemical exposure at the molecular level, and I continued to read additional articles and papers concerning toxicology and genetics … My research utilizes Saccharomyces cerevisiae, commonly known as yeast, to visualize differences in gene expression following exposure to various concentrations of lead.

Although scientists do not yet fully understand how memories are formed, a protein called phosphodiesterase 4D (PDE4D) is clearly involved. Some children are born with mutated, damaged PDE4D, which results in a genetic condition called acrodysostosis. Kids with acrodysostosis typically have learning disabilities as well as short fingers, short toes, narrow faces, and short height. Currently there is no treatment for acrodysostosis, but this research shows it may be possible to use a small molecule to help mutated PDE4D and treat acrodysostosis.

In high school, I endeavored to participate in the Brain Bee competitions, the equivalent of the Scripps National Spelling Bee or National Geography Bee, except on neuroscience trivia. Here, I became exposed to the fascinating aspects of the nervous system, especially its striking adaptive capabilities called plasticity. Having read about extraordinary cases in which patients afflicted with neurological disorders managed to survive with minimum personality change or psychological impact, I wondered how far the brain’s resiliency can extend, and more importantly, if it could be harnessed to treat neurological disorders in the future.

My research work involved analyzing sediments from three coastal lakes in Japan to reconstruct history of past inundations. The sediments were collected from the lake bottom in the form of vertical cylindrical cores from the approximately the center of the lakes. Sediments collected from anywhere else would not be a stable archive of past inundations as they may get washed or shift with further inundations. Then the sediments were analyzed for grain size and content of organic and in organic materials on a layer by layer basis.

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.

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).

As global warming becomes more apparent, the effects of temperature on living organisms are causing great concern. However, most information regarding the impact of rising temperature on life is descriptive and inexact. Along with AP Calculus, I took AP Biology my sophomore year and was fascinated by the idea of emergent properties, the idea that life is not a simple sum of its respective parts; interactions between the different levels of biology create emergent properties that cause, for example, a cell to behave differently from a mixture of its component molecules.

My first task was to come up with a project idea. I have always loved statistics, so I wanted to do a project involving a lot of data and statistical analysis. I began looking on the internet to find some current research that was being conducted. I came across a man who was working with historical data. The data set that he was working with was ship log data taken by Benjamin Franklin to observe the Gulf Stream.

Before I entered high school, my older brother returned from his lab each day with a story about his work. I could always hear his excitement when he talked about his project. I knew I wanted to try my hand at research but the microarray analysis procedures he described did not appeal to me. Volunteering then at a local hospital, I wanted to pursue a hands-on study of disease, but was unsure how to go about it.

My very first science fair project, completed in the spring of my seventh grade year, dealt with the harmful effects of acid rain on a variety of common transition metals. This project laid the foundation of my dual interests in inorganic transition metal chemistry and the environmental applications of chemistry. One year later, my research switched gears towards the medical applications of transition metal chemistry. I devised an original recipe for baking powder by eliminating a standard ingredient, sodium aluminum sulfate, which has been identified as a possible chemical trigger of Alzheimer’s disease, and replacing it with a variety of transition metal compounds that are essential to the body.

Pragmatically, the inspiration for this project is drawn from a series of backpacking excursion I embarked upon with my brother and father two years ago, which in the end totaled approximately 120 miles. Now the golden maxim of backpacking is to pack frugally. So, every day as I repacked my backpack, I would glare angrily at the extra weight of fire by friction set material I had to carry with me because it made the overall weight of my bag very onerous.

In the summer prior to my sophomore year, I remember reading a Wall Street Journal article titled “Feeding Billions, a Grain at a Time,” discussing how both rising food prices and climate change threatened decades of progress on global agriculture. Then, a few months later, The New York Times launched an article series called “The Food Chain,” highlighting issues in international agriculture. I found it puzzling that while two prominent newspapers were featuring agriculture coverage, very few people in the United States were aware of global food issues.

Cold Fusion has been an active research field in the quest for next-generation energy. In Andrei Lipson’s CR-39 experiments, oscillating deuterium atoms or other particles were accelerated (collective acceleration effect) through an electric field and collided with each other to undergo fusion. Another procedure conducted by Roussetski involved the bombardment of TiD2 with a Deuteron beam. In all these scenarios of fusion research, a significant bottleneck is the detection of reactant molecules.

My parents, both Chinese citizens at the time, came to the United States in the late 80’s to attend graduate school. Later on, my mom got a job offer and they moved to the town I was born and raised in, a small town in North Dakota by the name of Grand Forks. We have been here since then. The Red River of the North runs through Grand Forks, and one summer, I was deemed old enough to ride my bike down to the river so that I could explore.

Nanostructures are constructed from carbon nanotubes as well as small nanoparticles on the scale of 0.000 000 001 meters. In recent years, DNA has come to be used in nanotechnology as a structural base material. DNA is prized in this regard for its unique property of Watson-Crick complementary base pairing. This natural process can be exploited to allow for the self-assembly of segments of DNA. Base pairing itself is an extremely primitive example of self-assembly.

As Dr. Wilson explained to me, researchers had recently developed computational methods known as “local methods,” which made certain approximations to decrease the expense of working with larger molecules. In the description of space employed by local methods, electrons interact mainly with other electrons that occupy spatially close orbitals; with conventional methods, all electrons interact with each other. This approximation reduces the number of integrals the computational program has to evaluate, and thus reduces the computational cost.

After I wrote a paper about alternative fuels for submission to a science essay competition I came to understand that energy is the root cause of many of the world’s problems. Problems of pollution, food shortages, bad or insufficient water, lack of transportation, terrorism, genocide and global warming all have an energy dimension. I have come to believe that these problems could be ameliorated or even eliminated if we had an abundant and inexpensive source of renewable energy.

I first started learning the theory behind quantum chemistry during my sophomore year, when a friend first introduced me to Dr. Tao and his lab at the California State University of Fullerton (CSUF). In the summer of 2006, I spent over 40 hours per week in the lab, running calculations and researching more on reactions involving the hydroxyl and chlorine radicals in the atmosphere. Read More

As a student in the Medical Sciences Specialized Learning Center of Freehold High School in Freehold, New Jersey, I was given the opportunity to conduct independent research for the complete duration of my junior year. Having been given permission to complete any type of research, I wanted to challenge myself by working in a unique research field: I attempted to combine my knowledge and interest in the life sciences with computer science.

Sickle cell anemia is an inherited disorder in which red blood cells become stiff and sickle-shaped. This condition is caused by defective hemoglobin that clusters together, forming long, rod-like structures. The abnormal red blood cells cannot freely move through small blood vessels and thus cause blockages that deprive organs and tissues of oxygen. A study published in 2003 established that the use of hydroxyurea therapy decreases mortality among sickle cell patients by forty percent and significantly reduces pain and acute chest crises.