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Mary Masterman of Westmoore High School, Oklahoma City, OK wins first place.
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The Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS) recently named its top ten winners at the annual Intel STS 2007 awards. Forty finalists were selected to travel to Washington, D.C. to participate in the rigorous judging process, meet with national leaders, interact with leading scientists and display their research at the National Academy of Sciences. For the first time in the history of the program there were an equal number of female and male finalists who represent 38 schools from 20 different states.
First Place Winner
Mary Masterman, a 17-year-old Westmoore High School senior from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was awarded a $100,000 scholarship for describing the spectrograph system she built. Mary machined her own parts, and aligned her own optics. Using lenses from a camera and a microscope as well as a laser for her light source, Mary was able to separate the individual photons scattered by the tested molecules, similar to the effects a prism has on light, and record their wavelengths.
She found she could attain fairly accurate wavelength measurements compared to published readings for household solvents and other objects despite using an inexpensive laser. The cost for building her spectrograph was only $300; quite an accomplishment compared to the $20,000 - $100,000 cost for commercial units.
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| "Even if you think that what you want to do is impossible, go ahead and go for it because you never know what you can accomplish."
Mary Masterman
First Place Winner
2007 Intel Science Talent Search
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Mary has been honored in the past for numerous science awards, and showcased a Raman Effect presentation at an American Astronomical Society conference. Ranked first of the 658 Westmoore High School students, Mary also enjoys painting, bird watching, and plays three instruments: piano, harp, and flute. Mary is planning to enroll in either MIT or CalTech.
John Pardon- Second Place Winner
For his mathematics project that solved a classical open problem in differential geometry, John Pardon of Chapel Hill, North Carolina's Durham Academy received a $75,000 scholarship. John used a new approach to extend findings already known in polygons to a broad array of shapes. In his research, John was able to show that a finite-length closed curve in the plane can be made convex in a continuous manner, and without bringing any two points of the curve closer together.
Previously, John received a gold prize at both the 2005 and 2006 International Olympiads in Informatics, placed among the top 25 algorithm writers in the TopCoder competition, and apprenticed in robotics in 2005.
John also plays cello for the Honors All State Orchestra, and spent a summer working on a Costa Rican organic farm. John is looking to study math and computer science at either CalTech or Princeton.
Dmitry Vaintrob- Third Place Winner
Dmitry Vaintrob from South Eugene High School in Eugene, Oregon, won a $50,000 scholarship for his sophisticated investigation of ways to associate algebraic structures to topological spaces. This Russian-born, 18-year-old, known as Mitka, proved that loop homology and Hochschild cohomology coincide for an important class of spaces in his submission.
Mitka has won numerous mathematics honors, participates in Russian theater, and enjoys running and Nordic skiing. After studying pure mathematics at either Harvard or MIT, Mitka hopes to become a research mathematician and university educator.
Rounding out the top 10 winners:
- Catherine Schlingheyde - Fourth place, $25,000 scholarship
From Oyster Bay High School in Oyster Bay, New York, Catherine presented her research on microRNA repression, a basic mechanism that regulates cell function. Catherine hopes to pursue a career as a virologist after attending Case Western Reserve or MIT.
- Rebecca Kaufman - Fifth place, $25,000 scholarship
Rebecca observed the effects of male hormones in a model of schizophrenia. The 17-year-old from Croton-Harmon High School in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, hopes to attend UC Berkeley or Brown.
- Gregory Brockman - Sixth place, $25,000 scholarship
Greg provided a thorough analysis of Ducci sequences, also known as the "four number game." After graduating from Red River High School in Grand Forks, North Dakota, he plans to study at MIT or Harvey Mudd College.
- Megan Blewett - Seventh place, $20,000 scholarship
Megan presented analysis of a protein that may be implicated in multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The Madison High School senior from Madison, New Jersey, hopes to attend Harvard or MIT.
- Daniel Handlin - Eighth place, $20,000 scholarship
Daniel, from High Technology High School in Lincroft, New Jersey, showcased his accurate, low-cost method of determining the position of geo-stationary Earth-orbit (GEO) satellites. He looks toward an astrophysics or aerospace engineering career following Harvard or MIT.
- Meredith MacGregor - Ninth place, $20,000 scholarship
Meredith investigated the fluid dynamics of the "Brazil Nut Effect," in which shaken particles separate by size with the largest on top. She hopes to attend Harvard or Princeton after graduating from Boulder, Colorado's Fairview High School.
- Emma Call - Tenth place, $20,000 scholarship
Emma's project focused on the fabrication of 3-D microcubes, which have potential use as novel drug-delivery devices. She plans to move on to Case Western Reserve or Johns Hopkins after graduating from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.
The remaining 30 finalists will each receive a $5,000 scholarship, and all students will receive an Intel® Centrino® Duo mobile technology-based laptop.
Intel STS 2006 (PDF;20 pages)
Intel STS 2005 (PDF;25 pages)
Intel STS 2004 (PDF;45 pages)
Intel STS 2003 (PDF;7 pages)
Intel STS 2002 (PDF;3 pages)
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