Yi Sun, California
Second Place: $75,000
Yi Sun, 17, of San Jose, submitted an Intel Science Talent Search project in mathematics that involves the winding number of a function, which, in the case of the plane, is the number of times it encircles the origin. The functions he considers are discrete random walks on the set of points in the plane with integer coordinates. A random walk here is a sequence of vertices such that with equal probability 1/4, a vertex in the sequence will be followed by the vertex directly above, below, to the left, or to the right of it. Yi asked how many steps one expects to take, in order to wind around the origin; he shows that this expected number of steps is infinite. A student at The Harker School, Yi reads French and Chinese fluently, captains the Quiz and Science Bowls, and enjoys swimming on the varsity team. Recipient of gold medals at international Olympiads in physics and math, he also received several awards in French and first place in the Mandelbrot Math Competition in 2005. The son of Dr. Lizhong Sun and Tianjing Shen, Yi was born in China. After completing mathematics studies at Harvard or MIT, he hopes to become a professor or research scientist.
Yuan Zhang, Maryland
Third Place: $50,000
MARYLAND
Yuan Zhang, 17, of Derwood, submitted a project in medicine and health to the Intel Science Talent Search. Chelsea studied the molecular mechanisms behind atherosclerosis, or arterial plaque buildup, a disease in which lipid-laden macrophages - fat-filled white blood cells - build up in the vessel wall. The cell-adhesion chemokine molecule CX3CL1 has been implicated in the process. In her study using human cells, Chelsea demonstrated that the adhesion of macrophages to arterial muscle cells was largely CX3CL1-dependent and that components of oxidized lipids increased its expression. She believes targeting the upregulation of CX3CL1 by oxidized lipids could yield drug treatments for atherosclerosis. Chelsea has perfect SAT scores in critical reading, math and writing and has earned numerous awards in writing, science and math. She hopes to attend MIT or Harvard and pursue a career applying information technology to research. She is managing features editor of the school newspaper and co-president of the computer team at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring. The daughter of Ruiqiu Zhang and Jingfen Wu, Chelsea was born in China and is fluent in Chinese.
[ 此贴被卡拉在03-15-2006 13:57重新编辑 ]
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