Climate change is the greatest existential threat to humanity. Throughout high school, I have connected myself to a massive global movement of youth fighting to change this. Over the past four years, I have dedicated my time to pursuing policy solutions to environmental issues and spearheading climate education initiatives in my local community, as well as at the national and global levels. Through these projects, I’ve engaged with other inspiring activists and learned the importance of collaboration and leadership - especially among young people whose futures are most impacted by global warming. When it came time for me to conduct my own research study in my senior year of high school, which I later submitted to Regeneron Science Talent Search, there was no question in my mind that I wanted to explore the social and political dimensions of climate change.

Undoubtedly, the cornerstone of the project is the exploration of possible improvements for convolutional neural networks. CNNs have been used for object recognition a million times, and having a specific genus of fungi as a subject is nothing special enough to warrant a research paper. However, they do present an interesting issue: they are similar enough to cause a standard CNN issue with identification. Worse still, there is an even bigger host of issues arising from sourcing data from open datasets, such as obscured images, bad positioning, incorrect labeling, and countless others. In short, my project was not only tackling how to create a CNN to classify mushrooms

Ailanthus Altissima, also known as the Tree of Heaven, is an invasive species that causes ecological damage by secreting toxic chemicals into the soil and competing with native species. Aside from ecological damages, it also serves as a host plant for numerous pests and insects, including the spotted lanternfly. The challenge posed by the Tree of Heaven necessitates efforts in management. Through this research study, the Tree of Heaven is monitored remotely using satellite images and machine learning. Due to the absence of studies, surveys, and data on the Tree of Heaven in the United States, a survey dataset conducted in Italy was used to train machine learning models along with satellite imagery to predict the spread of the Tree of Heaven in the United States.

When a person goes to check on a skin lesion or a runner wants to improve their form, a scanner is often used to track points on the body for measurements. Currently, there exists no solution that can instantaneously (in less than a second) compute the location of all these points at once. MiniMesh is a novel, resource-efficient algorithm that can accomplish this task on a small computer (like a phone or laptop) in real time from a single image. The algorithm takes an unorthodox approach of splitting this complex task into two simpler problems: finding the location of only 119 landmarks and extracting an outline from the patient’s image. After running these procedures, their output can be used to estimate the location of thousands of points which are displayed on the screen using a custom-made rendering engine. Overall, MiniMesh can process on average 20 images per second with high accuracy in all tasks. The speed of the algorithm can be improved to 50+ images per second when running each part of the algorithm parallelly. MiniMesh accomplishes what large motion capture systems can do using only a portable device, creating a fast, accurate, and inexpensive solution for all.

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for nearly one in six deaths, according to the World Health Organization (4). RAS genes (HRAS, NRAS, and KRAS in mammals) are the most frequently mutated oncogenes in human cancer and therefore, are considered one of the most important targets for anticancer therapy. (5). Acting as binary molecular switches, RAS genes alternate between a GDP (off) state and GTP (on) state. When in the GTP state, they transduce signals which regulate cell proliferation, differentiation, survival, and more (1). In the mutated oncogenic form of RAS, it remains solely in the GTP state, sending unwanted signals and causing unwanted processes (11,12). The dysregulation of these processes is considered a part of the hallmarks of cancer, which describe a set of functional capabilities acquired by normal human cells as they make their way to becoming malignant tumors (9). The various forms of RAS all have differing functions; HRAS has been found to be implicated most frequently in cervical, prostate, salivary gland, skin, digestive tract, and urinary tract cancers (12).

The origins of my research project start in my 10th grade AP Biology class. My teacher was lecturing on DNA and its biological function for storing cellular information, which she described as analogous to computer storage. It was an interesting analogy that I expanded on with genes being “files” stored in the genome “hard drive.” I eventually began to wonder if it was feasible to use DNA directly for computer storage, as after all it must possess incredibly high storage density to be viable for its biological purpose. Around this time, I was taking a summer program about satellite design where I learned about the challenges of data storage in space due to its high levels of radiation. With these two insights in mind and wanting to start a new research project, I decided to develop a storage system for deep space and enterprise applications based on DNA.

I was always a nature person and felt connected with the outdoors. There was something therapeutic about being alone by the water- just a wandering mind and the constant breaking of the waves along the shoreline. To me, the raw beauty of the environment is worth preserving because the small moments where we get the chance to truly appreciate nature are the most memorable ones. In a time where economic gains are prioritized above the state of the environment, it is disheartening to see that the environment that took billions of years to form is being dismantled in a span of decades … As I learned more about the major issues surrounding oceanic life and climate change, I became drawn to corals, who played pivotal roles in the balance of marine ecosystems while maintaining their intrinsic beauty. It was this perfect harmony of symbiosis that has remained unchanged for thousands of years- until now. Increased carbon emissions across the world have led to increased oceanic temperatures. Because corals thrive at an optimal temperature, they are unable to survive when oceanic temperatures rise. As a result, we are seeing massive bleaching events across the world’s oceans. In recent years, bleaching events have become more severe, and corals are running out of time. With coral vitality at risk, I knew that part of the solution to improving coral health was the microbiome, whose wide consortium of bacteria may play a part in increasing resistance to heat stress …

Human brains are way too complicated with billions of neurons and hundreds and even thousands of trillion connections that are still not completely understood. Because of this, studying a smaller “brain” permits one to better understand how the brain and the neural network influences the behavior of a creature. The C. elegans’ connectome is the ideal network to research because of its simplicity (only consisting of 302 neurons and the fact that it has been completely mapped out. In this project, I strive to find the most important connections within different C. elegan sub-neural networks (chemical forward, gap junction forward, chemical backward, and gap-junction backward neural networks) using the symmetrized neural sub-networks. I randomly break the symmetry and use stochastic binary simulations to approximate its dynamics. My study focuses mainly on the locomotion neural circuits of C. elegans. These neurons are categorized as forward or backward, controlling the forward and backward motion of the C. elegans, respectively. The forward and backward neural networks are further broken down into the gap-junction and chemical circuits where the gap junction circuit connections carry information that travels to and from the neurons connected (bi-directional) while the chemical synapse connections carry information that travels only in one direction (uni-directional). The locomotion circuit consists of two main functional classes of neurons called command interneurons and motor neurons. Command interneurons function as information processors as they receive input from sensory neurons (not studied) and pass on information and decisions to motor neurons or other interneurons.

Since 2014 I have watched forests and farms struggle against the spotted lanternfly. As I saw my community struggle I decided to take action. I organized “scraping parties,” where I taught others the dangers of the spotted lanternfly and how to scrape their egg masses. Additionally, I created a YouTube video and many flyers that teach about the importance of eradicating the spotted lanternfly. I even planted over 600 grapevines at a local vineyard, to make up for the ones lost due to the spotted lanternfly… I changed the focus of my project to determine the feeding pattern of the spotted lanternfly, using phloem sap from the spotted lanternflies’ host plants. I extracted the phloem sap from host plants and tested their monosaccharide concentration using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). By doing so I discovered that spotted lanternflies prefer to feed on plants with a higher concentration of sucrose and a low concentration of fructose and glucose.While testing the monosaccharide concentration in host plants to discover the spotted lanternflies feeding pattern, I began to wonder were there other patterns that spotted lanternflies possess? … In order to look for more patterns I tested the spotted lanternflies on a molecular level and compared my results to results in China, India, and Vietnam. I discovered that the spotted lanternflies in the United States had the same mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) as spotted lanternflies in Asia…

Did you know that we’ve been studying the expanses of outer space longer than our own brains?! The term neuroscience was coined barely a century ago, proving how little we know about the 3 pound supercomputer within each and every one of us … as I started reading background literature, I became hooked! I found it incredible the way the brain stores the people, places, and items we see everyday like shelved books in a library. Everything is so expertly categorized while also allowing the brain to make connections between related concepts (Ex: Cat and Dog). It’s crazy to think that of the brain’s immense processing power, close to half of it is dedicated singularly to processing vision! … Overall, there were many fascinating things I learned from my research. First off, the brain prioritizes scenes over objects when it comes to visual recognition. The brain uses a heuristic approach to guess what objects may be present using the scene. For example, “If there’s a beach maybe there will be a beach ball.” Therefore, scenes were far more significant towards familiarity than objects. Another significant finding related to the visual cortex processing pipeline. Past studies assert that memory interfacing does not occur in the lower levels of the visual cortex. However, both this year’s study and last year’s studies show significant evidence that lower stages of the visual cortex actually participate in high-level processes. Some examples are short-term memory and mental imagery.

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. This research investigates whether the “foliar-spray” application of NPs of copper, manganese, and zinc (as oxides) increases the growth rate and crop efficiency of healthy O. basilicum plants, and inhibits the adverse effects of F.o., to ultimately devise an easily-applied, simple, and effective treatment to promote increased crop growth. Pre-grown (3") basil plants were first transferred to ~0.8L pots using ProMix-BX soil, which was pre-inoculated with 1-2ml of 1g/L-F.o in water. Each plant was then treated with ~2ml foliar spray of the respective nanoparticles. After 6 weeks growth, all three MO-NP treatments produced significant increases (>120%) in biomass, relative to diseased plants; ZnNPs were the most favorable, at 180% increase in biomass relative to untreated, diseased plants. Combined Cu-Zn NP treatment enhanced diseased plants’ biomass by 29% and provided a 40% increase in height. Most importantly, diseased-plants outgrew healthy controls by 21%, highlighting the treatment’s ability to fully suppress F.o., so that infected plants grow beyond normal, healthy conditions.

A few years ago, my best friend returned from her vacation to the island of Cozumel off the coast of Mexico with a GoPro full of images she had taken while paragliding, hiking, and relaxing on the beach. Most interesting to me, however, were the photos she had taken while scuba diving in the coral reefs that surround the island. As we scrolled through dozens of pictures of corals, I realized that my friend, like millions of other tourists, had in her possession a treasure trove of information about the health of the coral reefs of Cozumel at the time she visited. However, the issue was how to collect and analyze all that information efficiently … Machine learning (ML) is a field of computer science concerning the study of algorithms that learn from exposure to previous data in order to improve at autonomously completing a task. Chances are you’ve already interacted with ML algorithms in your everyday life: they drive the show recommendations that Netflix gives you, virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, and facial recognition software. I developed my interest in this field as I was thinking about my future in college and beyond; in fact, this project was a principal factor behind my decision to study computer science in college. I decided to dive head first into exploring ML by applying it environmental monitoring. With the guidance of my mentor Mr. Anthony Pellicano, the ML specialist at Angion Biomedica Corp. in New York, I used a convolutional neural network to analyze underwater images of coral reefs in order to detect the presence of healthy and bleached corals within these images.

My study looked at neural activity during different types of visual depth perception in 8 subjects using an EEG, mainly focusing on how we perceive depth in real life. There are two different types of visual depth - pictorial depth (depth on a two-dimensional plane, induced by pictorial depth cues such as shading) and stereo depth (true three dimensional depth believed to be induced by binocular disparity). In real life, pictorial depth cues and binocular disparity are both present in our daily experiences, which leads to the simultaneous perception of stereo and pictorial depth. However, there is no term for this combined percept, so I will call it combined depth perception. There were studies that qualitatively investigated the combination of stereo depth and specific pictorial depth cues. They all show that the impression of depth was strengthened when both stereo and pictorial cues were present, however they failed to address the mechanisms behind the combination (Bulthoff & Mallot, 1988; Johnston, Cumming & Parker, 1993; Schiller, Slocum, Jao, & Weiner, 2011). In this study, I propose possible interactions between pictorial and stereo depth percepts based on two different theories: the structuralistic approach and the Gestalt approach.

The world is in a state of environmental disarray and one way this can be fixed is through looking at past thriving ecosystems and using this information in order to inform future policies. I remember a time before hurricane Sandy, and everything, at least within my community had appeared environmentally sound. I remember the night when Sandy hit, wind incessantly pounded on my window, beckoning to come in, and the sound of torrential down-pour and emergency vehicles filled the night. The next morning, I looked out of my window, and all I could see was a world covered in branches and of fragments of homes. Everyone in our community had always believed ourselves immune to the wrath of the environment. However, being hit with one of the effects of global climate change had made up realize that we are not immune to climactic catastrophes. The New York Tri- State area was hit hard, with millions of dollars in damage. However, one thing saved us from further catastrophe: the marshes. The marshes had protected us from a further 625 million dollars in damage. It was when I discovered this, that I realized that I wanted to study the marshes to maximize their benefit. A few years later, I had begun doing some research at Alley Pond Environmental Center, where they had recently completed a remediation project …

Nobel Prize winner Albert Szent-Gyorgyi said, Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different. It was a tenant of my high school research program, one which resonates with me deeply. This was one of many mantras instilled in me by that all-star teacher, Ms. Zeitlin. I learned the importance of looking beyond the journal, the lab bench, and the next deadline in scientific research . . . I sought to investigate how generalist strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae withstand mutation compared to specialist strains. I wanted to explore how the genetic robustness of environmentally robust strains compared with that of non-environmentally robust strains. Is there a relationship between environmental and genetic robustness, and, if so, how is that relationship defined? Multiple replicates of a chemical mutagenesis experiment would be carried out for this investigation, though it would be unclear what mutations occurred, until a model with confidence was achieved and genome-wide sequencing carried out.

I specifically studied lysosomal distribution in distal axons, or the parts of the axons that were further away from the cell body. I did so using microfluidic chambers which are devices that allow the physical separation of the cell body and the axons . . . Altogether, my research actually suggests that lysosomes are mobile, and can be recruited to degrade waste in neurons axons, instead of staying within the neuronal cell body. Defects in lysosomal either transport or function may lead to accumulation of waste proteins in axons as seen in neuronal disorders. This study established a solid foundation to further investigate the role of lysosomes in distal axons under healthy and stress conditions associated with axonal degeneration. If we better understand the mechanisms behind lysosomal movement and distribution in axons, we can develop better therapeutic strategies in treating major neurodegenerative diseases, such as AD, PD, and ALS.

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 . . . Rising sea level, in conjunction with climate change, has the potential to lead to significant societal disruption over the next century. With the global mean rate of increase in relative sea level (RSL) at 1.7 mm/yr, which is predicted to accelerate to 3.88 mm/yr over the last decade of the 21st century, can lead to destructive effects- not only the obvious harms such as flooding. In fact, saltwater intrusion is a large implication for contamination of sources of drinking water; irrigation is thus also potentially affected, with large amounts of farmland becoming useless as RSL increases (Hartig, Kolker, Mushacke, & Fallon, 2002; Rice, Hong, & Shen, 2012). Further understanding of RSL is therefore required for improved preparation and mitigation strategies for potential consequences of increased RSL (Shepard et al., 2012).

Current computational devices and techniques are based on silicon microprocessors. Computer manufacturers have been increasing transistor density on computer chip microprocessors at a rate that approximates Moore’s Law, which states that the amount of gates on a single chip will double every two years. Unfortunately, the application of Moore’s Law has been predicted to reach an end because of the physical speed and miniaturization limits of silicon microprocessors. The advantages of DNA Computing include large storage capacity and an ample a supply of DNA, making it a cheap natural resource unlike the cost of fabrication of Si-based computers. Even though empirically it has been shown that DNA computation has slower cycle than a silicon system, the parallel processing capabilities of a DNA system is significant in solving NP-hard problems. Further motivations for studying DNA Computing or the construction of molecular scale computing devices include its scale. Biological systems through superior control have been shown to solve many complex problems while avoiding the inefficiency of current von Neumann architecture ….

Living in the intermountain west, I believe that there isn’t a more important resource to both humans and wildlife as water. Along with my early childhood interest in science, I have always been concerned about the availability of water, remembering times when our well water was low, barely yielding enough water for bathing due to the diversion of surface water for agriculture, as well as worsening drought conditions. I was also worried about the overuse of water by humans for seemingly trivial reasons, with little regard to wildlife or habitat needs. After I learned about the BLM trying reverse decades of dewatering by reestablishing wetlands in the high mountain valley where I live, I became intensely interested in how both humans and wildlife would benefit from this unique management effort … My study examines how temporary wetlands, called playas, can be beneficial to wildlife by serving as a rich food source for migratory birds, as well as a source of groundwater recharge for humans needs. Wetlands, particularly those in the West, have been in sharp decline for many years due to human demands, and are becoming less functional and more disconnected as wildlife habitat. By understanding how wetland habitats and groundwater are interdependent and linked, water application strategies can be developed that can support wildlife as well as the farming needs of humans … Math as it is taught in the classroom has not captured my intense interest as has science throughout my years in high school. However, while conducting my research on this project, I realized that math is what allowed me to visualize and deduce my conclusions: it is the tool that validates and describes the differences and findings of any scientific endeavor … I gained a tremendous amount of confidence when I realized that I had the ability to understand and use math as I conducted science, giving it a much deeper meaning than just textbook examples …

My project originated long ago, when I was barely an infant. Almost every day I visited the Museum of Natural History and had lunch underneath the blue whale after touring the museum, paying special attention to the dinosaurs. Ever since I was young, dinosaurs have held that special interest for me, not in the sense of big scary monsters of a world long gone, but more in the sense of marvels of nature, amazing creatures at the zenith of evolution … when the time came to design my research project, I knew there was only one choice. I had to try and find out how dinosaurs moved …

When I was little I would get indignant when the distinction was made between “people” and “animals.” I would pout and start talking taxonomy, informing some puzzled companion that actually, people are animals. When I read papers on intelligence and memory in slime molds last year, I was reminded of my childhood crusade to unite the animal kingdom. We share a common ancestry with slime molds as we do plants and animals. I began reading about emergence theory, and wondered if there wasn’t something to be learned about human intelligence from slime mold intelligence. Research suggested that the intelligence of slime molds was emergent arising from interactions among many simple and unintelligent components. I wondered, might studying the emergent mechanisms of memory and pattern recognition in slime molds elucidate the emergence of intelligence from repeated synapses in the human brain? … I have taken amazing lecture classes, but research clarified my interest unlike any class has. I have learned in class about Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the life cycles of stars, the hardly explicable formation of embryo from cell, and been awestruck. But research taught me about myself. My own fears, habits, abilities, and potential were thrown into relief in a new way. It astonished me that I could create new understand with an idea, some single-celled organisms, and a crate of petri dishes. There is nothing I would rather do …

For a moment, just think about it. Think about waking up in the middle of the night, thirsty, and not being able to access water because it is rationed so that the rest of your community can share the resource. Imagine using the restroom and having no water in the toilet because water is only cleaning out the latrine once a day. Although such scenarios seem quite extreme and impossible to many living in first world countries, this can become a reality at the rate at which water is being consumed and the inefficient manner it is being distributed … The water source on Earth is rapidly diminishing, and this is not new knowledge nor of new concern. Boating has been concluded to be a significant source of pollution; this focus has been centered around shoreline erosion, turbidity issues caused by uprising nutrient sediments, and chemical pollutants. Physical turbulence is not yet known to solely influence ecosystems, so this research centers on the re-suspension of water. Salt and freshwater ecosystems were created using a glass aquarium, plate glass, silicon seal, PVC pipes, and air and water pumps. Determining the severity and specific impacts of boating on photosynthesis and respiration gives clear and comprehensive views of water quality that is dependent on aquatic life.

When I was little, I always wondered why my parents worked late every day. While my friends went home after preschool, I would stay at my parents labs, waiting for them to finish their research. What was so interesting about science? One day, I begged my dad to show me his experiments. Smiling at my enthusiasm, he scraped some of my cheek cells and put them under the microscope. As he pointed out the nucleus and organelles of each cell, I watched in awe at the hidden complexity within my own body. At that moment, I knew that I wanted to be like my dad: to be able to look into the microscope and understand how the world works…After calibrating the basic model according to the videos and constants found in other scientic papers, I could then test the impact of different cellular foot forces on the overall rate of wound healing. I tested the effects of mechanical and chemical forces on the cell and found that mechanical forces alone could close a wound. If mechanical and chemical forces worked together, the wound would close at a much faster rate. Overall, I have created a model that can give a complete picture of cell movement during wound healing. The model is kept accurate by its close ties with reality, based on observation from actual wound healing videos. Agent-based modeling allows me to explicitly write the local causes of this overarching behavior, allowing me and future scientists to focus on specific forces for future biological study.

Evolutionary Biology is an extremely diverse field, in which studies of evolution occur both on the anatomical and molecular level. The anatomical level of this incredible field includes research like mine, used to reveal more about Earth’s past and creation, and to detail organism relationships using phylogenetic trees. This type of work reveals so much about the past that it is astounding … Archosaurs are an incredibly diverse and evolutionary highly successful group of organisms that include birds, crocodilians, and the now-extinct dinosaurs and pterosaurs (Brusatte, 2010). Their success as predators is particularly noteworthy. Not only were the long-extinct non-avian theropod dinosaurs the largest and most abundant terrestrial predators of the Mesozoic, but also during and since that period crocodilians have not only persisted but also dominated predatory aquatic and shore-line niches for more than 85 million years (Erickson et al., 2012). Like in many successful groups, feeding performance is a key reason for the evolutionary fitness of these animals (Erickson et al., 2003, 2012; Gignac, 2010).

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has allowed substantial advances in cancer genomics. In fact, large-scale discovery efforts have propelled the identification of hundreds of cancer-related genes in recent years. To be truly transforming, however, key cancer-associated mutations must be profiled systematically in the clinical and translational arena to guide rational cancer therapeutics. This aim has yet to be achieved on a larges-cale, mainly because many methodologies cannot be applied efficiently and reliably on formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tumor samples that are routinely encountered in the clinic and in archived tumor banks. This project is a part of the computational effort to develop and apply a robust and cost-effective methodology, empowered by solution-phase exon capture and massively parallel next-generation sequencing, by which any FFPE tumor may be characterized for somatic base mutations and copy number changes in all known cancer genes. With the programming language-R, the computational analysis of NGS data for assays running clinical samples has been redeveloped, automated, and graphically represented. Moreover, such analysis, such as copy-number graphs orQC metrics, can be computed at a speed that is 568 times as fast as the traditional, and manual, computational techniques of alternative methodologies.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I guess I was always meant to be a scientist. My aunt who used to babysit me could entertain me for hours with nothing but a glass of water, some spices, and a spoon. Performing my independent research, however, was the first time I ever did science for the purpose of helping others. My family does not have the best genes out there we have a history of a variety of diseases that are so far untreatable . . . I decided that cancer therapy, and by extension all medical treatments, could be done better. My interest in biology narrowed to an interest in medicine, and I started to look for ways to get involved . . . Systemic Lupus Erythematosis (SLE or lupus) is a chronic autoimmune disease affecting 1.4 million Americans, 9 in 10 of whom are women according to Lupus.org

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. When I made the decision in the spring of 2008 to do summer research, I consulted one of my teachers; he recommended Dr. Carlos Simmerling’s lab, which specialized in computational structural biology at Stony Brook University. And in my first visit to the Simmerling Lab, I was fascinated by the work of two graduate students who were visualizing proteins folding on the computer. The computer offered such a controlled environment for studying biological systems. Working mostly with software tutorials my first summer there, I also found that any experiment required my input at every step it was rewarding to have complete control. I soon began my own analysis of an enzyme in the tuberculosis (TB) pathogen. The freedom I had to study the complexities of TB under such controlled conditions inspired me to continue my project for the next three years.

Before high school, I was never the one whose favorite subject was science. I loved to hang out with friends, read, and write; a future in science had never particularly appealed to me. My first week of high school changed that. Through the Science Research Program at my school, I have been able to have the amazing opportunity to work in a cancer research laboratory at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY, one full day a week, as well as 2-3 days after school, and 3-4 weeks during the summer. Before applying to and entering the program, I thought science was simply looking under a microscope at cells, a more complex version of what we did in biology class. Through my experience in the lab, science has become a portal to an unending source of knowledge, one that I know very little of. I’ve come to realize that science, the subject that never interested me, is really so cool.

My project began on my flight from Long Island, New York to Northfield, Minnesota. I have always been a highly curious person, drawn to new knowledge and understanding of any topic. Yet, as I sat on that plane, beginning to read about the latest research in the behavioral biology of baboons, I did not realize Primatology would become a passion . . . At the Carleton College Summer Science Program I studied under Professor Annie Bosacker . . . Through Dr. Bosacker I was given access to an extensive data set, entitled GomDem04, collected for over forty years at Gombe National Park, Tanzania. This data set represented the demography of hundreds of wild olive baboons from various different troops that inhabit Gombe National Park. It provided essential information such as the name, birth date, number in birth order, sex, age at death, and mother’s name and age for each baboon. At first, the data sheet appeared to be an enormous, overwhelming mass of numbers and empirical information on thousands of baboons, without much study on their actual behavior. I could not see how I would be able to conduct a research project on behavioral biology through analyzing a set of numbers. Yet, through Dr. Bosacker’s vast knowledge of the topic and entertaining stories about her time at Gombe National Park, Tanzania, she brought the data to life…

Dengue fever affects 50-100 million people annually (Rigau, 1998). Scientists have recently developed genetic manipulation techniques to create transgenic mosquitoes refractory to disease transmission. The success of this strategy hinges on the dispersal of such genes throughout a population via matings of transgenic with wild-type mosquitoes. However, little is known about mating competitiveness of transgenic mosquitoes, or female mating patterns of mosquitoes in general . . . This study explored assortative mating of mosquitoes. Mating frequencies when a wildtype female mosquito was exposed to ten wild-type and ten mutant (Higgs white-eye) males were evaluated. The twenty males were placed in a bucket cage and a female was introduced. Immediately after copulation, the pair was aspirated out and the male eye color examined to determine its phenotype. A male of the same phenotype was replaced and the procedure repeated. A majority of matings resulted in the copulation of mutant males with wild-type females…

Computational science is playing a growing role in basic medical research in many ways. A key aspect of medical research and subsequent drug development is understanding exactly how biological systems operate on a macro and micro level. Through modeling of biological molecules, cells, tissues, and organs, and the networks of interactions, scientists can explore the mechanism through which these systems operate. Agent-based models are comprised of multiple, interacting agents situated within a model or simulation environment. A relationship between agents is specified, linking agents to other agents and / or other entities within a system. In an agent-based model, each component of a system of interest is represented as a discrete agent, with its own specific behavior (methods) and attributes (variables) . . . In my project, I attempted to apply this type of modeling on a much smaller biological scale. I considered not organs or cells or even organelles, but the actual proteins and lipids inside the cell, which has not been studied in the past years. The possibility of such rapid, cheap and exactly repeatable computer simulation of cellular signaling mechanisms represents a breakthrough in the study of cell biology. Here, I present the first agent-based model based on a cellular signaling pathway and show how it can be used to qualitatively study the effects of pathway perturbations, which may result in cancer…..

On my highly anticipated field trip to the ice skating rink in the eighth grade, I broke my leg within five minutes. I waited in a daze on the ice, thinking I had just sprained an ankle, until I felt the bones in my leg jiggling. The ambulance immediately came, I was shipped off, and put to sleep. When Iwoke up, Dr. Martin, a renowned orthopedic surgeon, announced to me that I had a broken tibia and fibula, both in multiple places, and am bleeding internally. We cannot delay this operation. You’re scheduled to undergo surgery immediately" . . . My face was masked and my IV flushed with intravenal anesthesia. I had no recollection of what followed until I awoke with an excruciating pain in my knee. I breathed slowly and deliberately, but why was I awake? My knee was being torn open, and I couldn’t open my eyes or wince! Then I recalled waking up from my surgery sobbing, surrounded by nurses cooing and repeating, “Everything will be all right.” I had acquired a 16" titanium rod and 4 screws in my leg through a 2" slit in my knee, and I was conscious for a part of it!. . . In Chaos Theory, Fractal Dimensions, and the Human Cerebrum, I discuss the evidence and development of a model to describe the dynamical processes responsible for consciousness and cognition. Emphasis is placed on chaotic neural activity and its mathematics in fractal dimensions to explain the phenomenon of subjective consciousness using objective physical mechanisms…..

In fact, for a time, I really was stuck. For the entire summer between sophomore and junior years, my research project rusted in a corner, because I had not yet discovered the true meaning of “computational” in computational biology. To me, “computational” was still the four major operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; I was computing numbers, much like a cheap, gas-station calculator. Little did I know, however, that there is an entire field of artificial intelligence focusing on classifiers, statistical learning methods, and intelligent systems . . . An understanding of drug-drug interactions (DDIs) impacts fields ranging from medicine to drug development to public health. In 2004, the average American took a combination of 12 prescription drugs per day [1]. This daily behavior seems trivial, but lack of proper DDI knowledge puts millions of individuals at risk, as a set of 12 drugs could cause more than 1000 lethal interactions. Also in 2004, more than 1% of all deaths were directly caused by DDIs, because these patients were oblivious to the life-threatening reactions that their drug repertoire would cause in the human body [2]. By developing a comprehensive database of DDIs, we can hopefully reduce the number of deaths associated with DDIs . . . There are existing programs that help pharmacists dispense better combinations of drugs, but these are sparse and often inaccurate. One of the goals of this investigation is to improve these programs in accuracy so that pharmacies can be more effective in preventing fatal DDIs…..

My advice to other high school students who wish to pursue math and science is to never feel intimidated. Problem solving techniques in engineering and science involve application of mathematics spanning various facets, such as statistics to calculus to abstract algebra and topology. When it becomes necessary to learn and apply them, do not feel intimidated by their complexity; it may be hard to understand some of these concepts at first, but it is important to be persistent. A sudden epiphany is all it takes for it to click, and it can occur at any time, as long as you have been doing all you can to expand your boundaries and learn all there is to learn about the fundamental concepts…..

The Southern Pine Beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis), is the genus of bark beetles causing the greatest amount of damage to pine trees. Southern Pine Beetles (SPB) live in the phloem, the layer just under the bark. The beetles tunnel their way through the pine tree’s phloem as they eat, cutting off the circulation of nutrients, and ultimately killing the pine. As the average temperature of the globe increases, minimum winter temperatures are no longer reaching the lower lethal point in many areas. This warming trend has permitted SPBs to migrate north to areas such as the forests in southern New Jersey where they are destroying large stands (groups) of pine trees

Inflammation occurs when leukocytes (white blood cells) leave the blood stream by passing between endothelial cells, the cells that line the walls of blood vessels, and move into the surrounding tissue. Endothelial cells actively change shape to allow leukocytes to pass between them, but this requires an increase in surface area that would not normally be allowed by a cell membrane. To allow this shape change, extra membrane and molecules that assist in the migration of the leukocytes are released from a compartment in endothelial cells called the Lateral Border Recycling Compartment (LBRC). The membrane in this compartment is constantly recycling in and out of the cell. This recycling is important in inflammation, but is very difficult to study experimentally and much is unknown about it.

Though I had a huge fear of bees, as many other people do, I was fascinated by the complex cognitive tasks these insects could perform despite their miniscule brains. I read numerous articles about how bumblebees were able to communicate with each other using various signals, such as by secreting pheromones to indicate when they have been successful when searching for food. It became clear to me that I wanted to study how bumblebees interact with each other and how their behavior affects their success during foraging.

Being that I am a twin, I sought after genetic studies to quench my rooted fascination with the potential biological linkage between family members, and furthermore, siblings. People would constantly question an existence of some bizarre twin connection; if your brother has to sneeze, will you have to as well? No-but could that be possible? If he develops a rare disorder, will I become susceptible as the next victim? As I explored the complexity of human psychology in association with genetic variability, I was amazed at the myriad of possibilities, both inheritable and environmentally stimulating, that may cause the onset of Schizophrenia.

Section 1

For as long as I can remember, I have always had an immense love for animals. When I was little, around 6 or 7 years old, all I wanted was a puppy. Every moment of every day, that’s all I would talk about, constantly asking my parents to please buy me a puppy. Finally after either seeing my side or not being able to stand my nagging, my parents gave in and said that I could get a puppy. Naturally I had the big decisions of what breed of dog, its name, where it would sleep and buying all of the supplies. Eventually I had my heart set on an English Springer Spaniel because my grandfather had had five and said they were wonderful family dogs. So, we found a breeder and on June 7th, 1997, we picked up our black and white English Springer Spaniel. All I can remember was never wanting to put it down and constantly want to pet it and just love it. She would be named Carnation after my mother’s favorite flower, and to this day she is my beautiful dog, almost like a daughter to me. As time went on, I became very interested in Carnation’s veterinarian appointments and made it a priority to become friendly with my veterinarian. In going to many appointments, I found a deep respect for veterinarians and have decided that this would be my life’s work. Even to this day, I am still an active part in Carnation’s physical health and am still good friends with the veterinarian. So from this point on, every time in the veterinarian’s office I am amazed at all of the instruments and I get to learn something new every time I go.

I sat as still as the humid air around me, on soft yellow sand lightly punctuated by pebbles and twigs. With my eyes, I followed an advancing motion that was shaking the lowest branch of one of the bushes that surrounded my little island of sand. Slowly and deliberately the motion progressed forward until, upon reaching the threshold where the protection of the leaves ended, it stopped. A minute or so later, an elaborately patterned green head emerged from the leaves and two intense black eyes focused on my surroundings and me. I thought I could not remain still any longer, but from the shadow surrounding the pair of dark eyes, a diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin) finally took shape and proceeded to gradually make her way over the sand and pebbles, occasionally stopping to prod into the sand with her nose, dig a small hole, and move on to another spot, where she repeated her pre-nesting procedure. What was she looking for? After four test holes, this mother-to-be chose a spot to her liking in a sandy plot near a small bush and committed her clutch of eggs to the sand and microhabitat. Here they would incubate from seventy to one-hundred days. Yet why did she make her nest in this particular spot, near this particular bush?