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Three Indian-Americans are among second and third place winners at the recently concluded Intel Science Talent Search 2015, the oldest and most prestigious pre-college science and math competition run by the Society for Science and the Public. Thirteen Indian-American teenagers were among the 40 finalists who competed in the finals in Washington, D.C. March 9 and 10.
Saranesh (Saran) Thanika Prembabu, 17, of San Ramon, California, won the second place Medal of Distinction for Innovation, while Shashwat Kishore, 18, of West Chester, Pennsylvania, won third place in Basic Research, and Anvita Gupta, 17, of Scottsdale, Arizona, was placed third in the Global Good category.
Starting this year organizers tripled the top awards to further recognize finalists and highlight the variety of research conducted, the society said in a press release. The finalists took home awards totaling more than $1 million with first place winners – Noah Golowich, Andrew Jin and Michael Hofmann Winer – each receiving $150,000. Additionally, second- and third-place winners received awards of $75,000 and $35,000, respectively. Other finalists received awards of $7,500.
“We are honored to congratulate Noah, Andrew, Michael and the rest of the top winners of the Intel Science Talent Search 2015,” said Maya Ajmera, president and CEO of Society for Science & the Public and alumna of the Science Talent Search. “These students serve as shining examples of the incredible work being accomplished in STEM fields by young people, and we are proud to recognize and reward these stellar young researchers,” she added.
“A solid foundation in science, technology, engineering and math creates the critical talent corporations and startups need to drive their business and contribute to economic development,” said Renee James, president of Intel Corporation. “We hope this program will encourage other young people to become the next generation of scientists, inventors and engineers.”
Prembabu studied how varying the layers of lead titanate and strontium ruthenate in nanocrystal superlattices can affect their electrical and magnetic properties, which could be harnessed for a variety of electrical and computing applications. For his math research, Kishore focused on representing abstract algebras using matrices. His work developed a new relationship between these matrices and topology, the press release said. Gupta used machine learning to “teach” a computer to identify potential drugs for cancer, tuberculosis and Ebola. Preclinical trials are already underway in China on the tuberculosis drugs that she identified.
Last year, Anand Srinivasan of Roswell, Georgia, was placed eight in the finalists and a $20,000 award for his neural-network-based computer model, RNNScan, which “learns” patterns in DNA to predict the boundaries of certain genomic regions, while Shaun Datta of North Potomac, Maryland, placed tenth, received a $20,000 award for his research that used computer models and equations to improve the understanding of the interactions of nuclear matter.
