Florida, North Carolina and Virginia Students Among National Winners, Finalists in Siemens Competition

Jan. 2010

Southern News

Individual Finalist Lanair Lett

Sean Karson, a senior at Trinity Preparatory High School in Winter Park, Fla., shared the top team prize and a $100,000 scholarship at the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology in New York City on Dec. 7, 2009, with his teammates from Austin and Sugar Land, Texas. Lanair Lett, a senior at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, took home an individual $30,000 scholarship.

Other team finalists included Neil Shah of Greensboro, N.C., and Yekaterina (Katie) Shpanskaya of Raleigh, N.C., who shared a $50,000 scholarship, and Andrew James Swoboda of Oakton, Va., who split a $10,000 scholarship with a teammate from Laguna Niguel, Calif.

Team Finalists Yekaterina (Katie) Shpanskaya and Neil Shah

Karson and teammates Dan Liu and Kevin Chen won the team category for their mathematics research project, titled Relating Missing and Decycling Edges in Directed Graphs. The results of this project advance the infrastructure and knowledge of graph theory by shedding new light on a problem that’s been open in the mathematics community since 1978. The team’s approach may open doors to a reduction of bottlenecks in complex networks, such as the Internet and transcontinental trade routes, thereby creating faster and more efficient processes. The team’s mentor was Jian Shen, professor of mathematics at Texas State University–San Marcos.

“We never expected high school students to achieve such success in examining this upper bound aspect of graph theory,” said Karen Collins, professor of mathematics and chair of the Mathematics and Computer Science Department at Wesleyan University. “The team coupled enthusiasm and confidence with deep knowledge and substance, and their work has already been cited by other mathematicians, showcasing its immediate impact for the mathematics community.”

Lett won one of the individual categories for a biochemistry project that examined a specific protein's potential for improving therapeutic methods for treating diabetes. The research aimed to optimize treatments for diabetes through a better understanding of Beta cell growth. Lett suffers from diabetes himself, as does his mother and grandmother, and it was this personal experience that inspired him to conduct research pertaining to the disease.

Neil Shah, a senior at Northwest Guilford High School in Greensboro, N.C.; and Yekaterina (Katie) Shpanskaya, a sophomore at Math and Science School (Home School) in Raleigh, N.C., won in the team category for a project titled, Supercomputing Analytical Discovery of Plasma Instabilities in Fusion Energy Reactors. This project facilitates the understanding of fusion by analyzing computer-simulated fusion reactor data and paves the way for an efficient analysis of massive amounts of data on powerful computer architectures, consisting of hundreds or thousands of processors operating in parallel. Shah is also a National AP® Scholar, AP Scholar with Distinction and National Merit Semifinalist.

Team Finalists Andrew James Swoboda and Ryan Lindeborg

Swoboda, a junior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., and his teammate Ryan Lindeborg, a sophomore at Dana Hills High School in Dana Point, Calif., won in the team category for their materials science project titled Optimization of Platinum Nanoparticle Deposition on Nafion Membranes. This project examined a novel method to maximize efficient platinum catalyst loading and enhance the performance of the proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell. Among other findings, the research showcased a method to decrease the use of platinum — a very expensive metal — within the PEM fuel cell by 50 percent, thereby making the technology more economical as well as more scientifically approachable.

The Siemens Competition was launched in 1998 to recognize America’s best and brightest math and science students. The annual competition is administered by the College Board and judged by a panel of nationally renowned scientists and mathematicians, and this year was headed by lead judge Thomas Jones, a prominent scientist, author, pilot and former NASA astronaut. In another record-setting year, 2,151 students registered to enter the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology in 2009 for a total of 1,348 project submissions, which is a 14 percent increase in project submissions from 2008 and more than a 12 percent increase in the number of registrations. For more information, visit the Siemens Foundation on the Web. In April, the College Board will welcome Jennifer Harper-Taylor, vice president of the Siemens Foundation, as a keynote speaker at the College Board’s A Dream Deferred™ conference in Atlanta.