Tennessee Teens Win Top Team Prize in Siemens Competition
Dec. 2011
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Sitan Chen, Northview High School, Duluth, Ga. (Mathematics) |
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 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 13th annual awards were presented earlier this month at The George Washington University, host of the 2011 Siemens Competition National Finals.
Liu and 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 uses 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. Liu and Cain’s work could ultimately contribute to prosthesis design.“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 Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “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.”
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Joshua Kubiak, Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts, Natchitoches, La (Chemistry) |
Sitan Chen of Northview High School in Duluth, Ga., also was named a National Finalist for his mathematics research and won a $40,000 scholarship.
Joshua Kubiak, a senior at Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts in Natchitoches, was named a National Finalist for his biochemistry project and received a scholarship of $30,000.
The remaining Regional Finalists each received $1,000 scholarships. Regional Finalists in the Individual category were:
- Jaya Janadhyala, Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology, Lawrenceville, Ga.
- Alina Li, Paideia School, Atlanta, Ga.
- Luo Qian, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria, Va.
- Ellora Sarkar, Miami Palmetto Senior High School, Miami, Fla.
Regional Finalists in the Team category were:
- Jyotishka Biswas and Jaron Rottman-Yang, School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt, Nashville, Tenn.
- Madison Chakoumakos and Zibo Zhuang, Oak Ridge High School, Oak Ridge, Tenn.
- Aakash Indurkhya and Peter Fan, North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Durham, N.C.
- Yon Jang, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria, Va.; Matthew Rudin, Half Hollow Hills High School West, Dix Hills, N.Y., and Hansen Qian, Saratoga High School, Saratoga, Calif.
- Ye Tao and Marvin Qian, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria, Va.
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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