2008 Intel Science Talent Search Winners Announced

Shivani Sud of North Carolina Awarded $100,000 Intel Scholarship

Honoring the next generation of American innovators, Intel Corporation today announced the winners of the Intel Science Talent Search. Shivani Sud, 17, of Durham, N.C., won the top award, a $100,000 scholarship from the Intel Foundation. For her research project, Sud developed a model that analyzed the specific “molecular signatures” of tumors from patients with stage II colon cancer. She then used this information to identify those at higher risk for tumor recurrence and propose potentially effective drugs for treatment.
Also achieving top placement in the competition were:

Second Place: Graham Van Schaik, 17, of Columbia, S.C., received a $75,000 scholarship for his 2-year project studying the effects of pyrethroids, a common type of pesticide, on breast cancer and nerve cell degeneration.

Third Place: Brian McCarthy, 18, of Hillsboro, Ore., received a $50,000 scholarship for developing new types of solar cells in order to provide a less expensive, renewable form of energy.

Fourth Place: Katherine Banks, 17, of Brooklyn, N.Y., received a $25,000 scholarship for her geometric analysis of the number of lattice points inside polygons with nine sides.

Fifth Place: Eric Delgado, 18, of Bayonne, N.J., received a $25,000 scholarship for discovering a new way to improve the efficacy of antibiotics against multidrug-resistant bacteria.

Sixth Place: David Rosengarten, 18, of Great Neck, N.Y., received a $25,000 scholarship for his physics research showing that Einstein’s General Relativity Theory, in principle, could modify rotation curves in the absence of dark matter.

Seventh Place: Xiaomeng (Jessica) Zeng, 18, of Iowa City, Iowa, received a $20,000 scholarship for her social sciences project in which she found a positive relation between government and private funding of public libraries – as one increases, so does the other.

Eighth Place: Philip Mocz, 18, of Mililani, Hawaii, received a $20,000 scholarship for designing and using a statistical algorithm to discover hidden patterns of nearby stars.

Ninth Place: Alexis Mychajliw, 16, of Port Washington, N.Y., received a $20,000 scholarship for her project studying the importance of both wetlands and meadows as habitats for dragonflies and damselflies.

Tenth Place: Evan Mirts, 18, of Jefferson City, Mo., received a $20,000 scholarship for using a scanning ion conductance microscope (SICM) to observe the changes in size and shape of spinach chloroplasts over a period of time without destroying the sample.

The remaining 30 finalists received $5,000 scholarships and a new laptop featuring the Intel® Core™2 Duo processor.

This year’s Intel Science Talent Search finalists hailed from 19 states and represented 35 high schools throughout the United States. Of the more than 1,600 high school seniors who entered the 2008 Intel Science Talent Search, 300 were announced as semifinalists in January. Of those, 40 were chosen as finalists and invited to Washington, D.C., to compete for the top 10 awards.

“These forty students show what American youth can do when they are encouraged to study math and science,” said Intel Chairman Craig Barrett. “In this presidential year, their stories should send a strong message that this critical foundation for innovation must be supported.”

The Science Talent Search is America’s oldest and most prestigious high school science competition. During the past 67 years, Science Talent Search alumni have received more than 100 of the world’s most coveted science and math honors, including six Nobel Laureates, three National Medal of Science winners, 10 MacArthur Foundation Fellows and two Fields Medals.

Society for Science & the Public (formerly Science Service), a nonprofit organization dedicated to public engagement in scientific research and education, owns and has administered the Science Talent Search since its inception in 1942.

“The Intel Science Talent Search 2008 finalists personify what drives American ingenuity,” said Elizabeth Marincola, president, Society for Science & the Public. “Society for Science & the Public is proud to join with Intel in congratulating Shivani Sud and all of this year’s finalists. We are inspired by their dedication to science, and are encouraged by what the quality and depth of their work foretells for our continued innovation and economic prosperity.”

Intel added sponsorship of the Science Talent Search to its extensive Education Initiative portfolio in 1998 to promote math and science education, a growing need in the United States. During the past 10 years, Intel has increased the total annual awards and scholarships from $207,000 to $1.25 million. The company has also reinvigorated the competition by adding awards for the schools and introducing technology to the experience, including providing laptop computers to all 40 finalists.

Intel has long been committed to promoting math and science education. In the past decade alone, Intel has invested $1 billion to improving education around the world. Today, Intel invests more than $100 million annually to promote education and technological literacy around the world.

To learn more about Intel’s commitment to education around the world, visit www.intel.com/education. To learn more about Society for Science & the Public, visit www.societyforscience.org.

Visit the full Intel Science Talent Search press kit and view photos of the top three winners visit the winners photos page.