California, Tennessee Teens Win Top Awards in Siemens Competition; Foundation Honors Gaston Caperton
Dec. 2011
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Angela Zhang, Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, Calif. |
Teens in California and Tennessee have won the highest science honor for high school students for their work on biochemistry research on cancer stem cells and an innovative use of gaming technology in the area of leg injuries and prosthetics. These projects earned the students $100,000 in the individual and team categories of the 2011 Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology, America’s premier science research competition for high school students.
Administered by the College Board, the Siemens Competition is the signature program of the Siemens Foundation, which supports science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. The thirteenth annual awards were presented earlier this month at The George Washington University, host of the 2011 Siemens Competition National Finals.
The Siemens Foundation, which sponsors the annual competition, also recognized College Board President Gaston Caperton with an Excellence in Partnership award for his commitment to students and their success.
“The Siemens Foundation, like the College Board, is a place that encourages dreams and dreamers, celebrating the creativity and ingenuity of those who make the impossible possible,” Caperton said. “Our commitment to expanding educational opportunity is fully matched by our partners at the Siemens Foundation. I am so grateful for this partnership, and for all the talented students across America who create brilliant projects for the Siemens competition.”
Angela Zhang, a senior at Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, Calif., won the $100,000 grand prize in the Individual category for using nanotechnology to eradicate cancer stem cells. Ziyuan Liu and Cassee Cain, seniors at Oak Ridge High School in Oak Ridge, Tenn., will share the $100,000 grand prize in the Team category for using new gaming technology to analyze human walking patterns — work that could ultimately be used in prosthesis design for amputees.
“It is a remarkable day for American innovation when our high school students do science research at this level,” said Jeniffer Harper-Taylor, president of the Siemens Foundation. “I hope other students will follow their example and embrace STEM subjects with such vigor. These young innovators are poised to drive the next generation of advances in science and technology.”
Six individuals and six teams competed at the National Finals after winning one of six regional competitions in November. They presented their research to a panel of judges that included nationally renowned scientists and mathematicians headed by lead judge Michael W. Plesniak, chair of the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at The George Washington University.
The Winning Individual
Angela Zhang won a $100,000 college scholarship for her project, “Design of Image-Guided, Photo-Thermal Controlled Drug Releasing Multifunctional Nanosystem for the Treatment of Cancer Stem Cells.”
“Angela created a nanoparticle that is like a Swiss army knife of cancer treatment,” said competition judge Tejal Desai, a professor in the department of bioengineering and therapeutic sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. “She showed great creativity and initiative in designing a nanoparticle system that can be triggered to release drugs at the site of the tumor while also allowing for noninvasive imaging. Her work is an important step in developing new approaches to the therapeutic targeting of tumors via nanotechnology.”
In her project, Zhang aimed to design a targeted gold and iron oxide–based nanoparticle with the potential to eradicate cancer stem cells through a controlled delivery of the drug salinomycin to the site of the tumor. The multifunctional nanoparticle combines therapy and imaging into a single platform, with the gold and iron-oxide components allowing for both MRI and photoacoustic imaging.
“Angela’s commitment to the research was truly impressive,” Desai said. “She has a deep understanding of the multitude of disciplines that went into her project, from designing the nanoparticles to showing their efficacy in vivo.”
Zhang won the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair Grand Award for medicine and health science in 2011 and 2010. She plays golf and the piano, and would like to major in chemical or biomedical engineering or physics. She is a 2010 Siemens Competition Regional Finalist who began her work on this project in 2009 and spent an estimated 1,000 hours on her research. Zhang hopes to become a research professor. Her mentor was Zhen Cheng of Stanford University.
The Winning Team
Ziyuan Liu and Cassee Cain will share a $100,000 college scholarship for their bioengineering project, “Using Kinect for Xbox 360 and Computer Vision to Analyze Human Gait,” which used gaming technology to analyze human walking patterns. An accurate understanding of a person’s motion is important in prescribing treatment for those with injuries or ailments that affect movement, such as amputations or joint replacements. Their work could ultimately contribute to prosthesis design.
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Ziyuan Liu and Cassee Cain, seniors at Oak Ridge High School in Oak Ridge, Tenn. |
“This team’s project involved the creative reuse of new gaming technology — the Kinect sensor — with advanced computer vision algorithms,” said competition judge Sudeep Sarkar, professor of computer science and engineering at the University of South Florida. “When further developed, their system could open avenues to bring personalized rehabilitation to the home. This could potentially reduce medical costs, allowing clinicians to monitor a patient’s progress from a remote site.”
Liu dreams of becoming the head of a software company or a banking firm. He is a member of the International Relations Club and French National Honor Society and enjoys playing the alto saxophone and swimming.
Cain is the drum major of her high school marching band and the costume designer for the drama club. She has long been interested in health care and dreams of becoming an oncologist. A National Honor Society National Achiever, Cain plans to major in chemical engineering. The team’s mentors on the project were John K. Mueller and Boyd McCutchen Evans III from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
National Finalists
Six individuals and six teams competed at the Siemens Competition National Finals. The remaining National Finalists were awarded the following scholarships:
Individuals
- $50,000 scholarship — Brian Kim, Stuyvesant High School, New York, N.Y. (Mathematics)
- $40,000 scholarship — Sitan Chen, Northview High School, Duluth, Ga. (Mathematics)
- $30,000 scholarship — Joshua Kubiak, Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts, Natchitoches, La. (Chemistry)
- $20,000 scholarship — John Wen, West High School, Iowa City, Iowa (Biology)
- $10,000 scholarship — John Solder, Staples High School, Westport, Conn. (Biology)
Teams
- $50,000 scholarship — Edgar Wang, Wayne Shu and Justin Yuan, Troy High School, Troy, Mich. (Biology)
- $40,000 scholarship — Julia Crowley-Farenga and Patrick Loftus, Evanston Township High School, Evanston, Ill. (Astrophysics)
- $30,000 scholarship — Blake Smith, Oceanside High School, Oceanside, N.Y.; and Vickram Gidwani, Horace Mann School, Bronx, N.Y. (Biochemistry)
- $20,000 scholarship — Andrew Xu, Lowell High School, San Francisco, Calif.; Kevin Chang, Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, Denton, Texas; and Kevin Tian, Westwood High School, Austin, Texas (Mathematics)
- $10,000 scholarship — Jeffrey Ling, Palo Alto Senior High School, Palo Alto, Calif.; and Helen Jiang, Henry M. Gunn High School, Palo Alto, Calif. (Bioengineering)
Launched in 1998, the Siemens Competition is the nation’s premier science research competition for high school students. An all-time record of 2,436 students registered to enter the Siemens Competition this year, resulting in an unprecedented 1,541 projects submitted. There were 317 Semifinalists and 96 Regional Finalists, representing 21 states. Entries are judged at the regional level by esteemed scientists at the six leading research universities that host the regional competitions: California Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Notre Dame and The University of Texas at Austin.
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