Texas Students Among National Winners, Finalists at Siemens Competition
Jan. 2010
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Individual Finalist Peter Hu |
Dan Liu, a junior at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy High School in Austin, Texas; Kevin Chen, a junior at William P. Clements High School in Sugar Land, Texas; and 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. Peter Hu, a senior at the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science in Denton, was an individual finalist in the national competition and received a $10,000 college scholarship.
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National Team Winners Liu,
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Liu, Chen and Karson 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.”
Hu won recognition for his materials science project that sought to develop a novel and biologically compatible material for protein drug delivery. While similar delivery systems for therapeutic proteins are known in scientific literature, many of these materials were found to be carcinogenic. Hu’s research project, titled Novel Thermogelling Dispersions of Polymer Nanoparticles for Controlled Drug Delivery, focused on an alternative FDA-approved material to mimic the behavior of these previous delivery systems, effectively avoiding prior toxicity issues.
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.
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