Chemotherapeutics and Mathematics Take Top Honors at Siemens Competition

Programs and Services

Individual Winner Ruoyi Jiang receives $100,000 scholarship.

The national winners of the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology were announced in New York City on Dec. 7, 2009. The top individual honor and a $100,000 college scholarship were awarded to Ruoyi Jiang, a senior at Ward Melville High School of East Setauket, N.Y., for his research on chemotherapy drug resistance. Taking the top team prize and sharing a $100,000 scholarship were Sean Karson, a senior at Trinity Preparatory High School in Winter Park, Fla.; Dan Liu, a junior at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy High School in Austin, Texas; and Kevin Chen, a junior at William P. Clements High School in Sugar Land, Texas.

“These students have just earned the highest recognition for original high school research projects in the United States," said Thomas McCausland, chairman of the Siemens Foundation. “We know this is just the beginning. Their dedication to excellence and passion for math and science will no doubt change the world.”

Siemens participants in Times Square

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. Youlanda Copeland-Morgan, chair of the College Board’s Board of Trustees, was on hand at the black-tie awards ceremony in New York to welcome this year’s 20 national finalists on behalf of the College Board. The finalists, who included six individuals and six teams, had previously competed at one of six regional competitions held in November at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The University of Texas at Austin, University of Notre Dame, Carnegie Mellon University and California Institute of Technology.

Jiang’s prize was for his biophysics research, which investigated the molecular basis of a prominent mechanism of chemotherapy drug resistance. The project uses state-of-the-art computational techniques to develop a more complete understanding of how Taxol functions to kill tumor cells. Jiang’s project, Targeting Loop Dynamics in βI/βIII Isotype Tubulin: The Application of In Silico Techniques in Combating Chemotherapy Drug Resistance, addresses very important outstanding questions surrounding Taxol, a drug used to treat cancer. Answering these questions will help develop better chemotherapeutics for treating cancer. Jiang worked on this project with his mentor, Carlos Simmerling, professor of chemistry at Stony Brook University in New York, as well as George J. Baldo, the director of InSTAR in East Setauket, N.Y.

“Mr. Jiang’s computational results help clarify the mechanism of action for Taxol, as well as suggest an exciting and provocative prediction for the structural basis of chemotherapy resistance,” said Rommie Amaro, assistant professor in the departments of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Computer Science at the University of California in Irvine. “This research is interdisciplinary, and required Mr. Jiang to synthesize not only the biology and chemistry but also the computational and theoretical concepts behind the methods.”

National Team Winners Liu, Chen and Karson on Times Square Marquis

Winning the team category, Sean Karson, Dan Liu and Kevin Chen will share a $100,000 scholarship for their mathematics research, 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, like 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 in 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 and chair in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. “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.”

In addition to the grand prizes, the other National Finalists of the 2009 Siemens Competition received awards as follows:

Individual Finalists

• $50,000 scholarship – Lynnelle Ye of Palo Alto, Calif.
• $40,000 scholarship – Marissa Suchyta of Chicago, Ill.
• $30,000 scholarship – Lanair Lett of Henderson, N.C.
• $20,000 scholarship – Dmitriy (Tim) Kunisky of Livingston, N.J.
• $10,000 scholarship – Peter Hu of Denton, Texas

Team Finalists

• $50,000 scholarship – Neil Shah of Greensboro, N.C., and Yekaterina (Katie) Shpanskaya of Raleigh, N.C.
• $40,000 scholarship – Xiao (Cathy) Zhou of Flushing, N.Y.; Israt Ahmed of Woodhaven, N.Y.; and Stephanie Chen of Bayside, N.Y.
• $30,000 scholarship – Randy Jia of Rochester Hills, Mich., and David Lu of Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
• $20,000 scholarship – Benjamin Song and Quan (Jack) Chen of Audubon, Pa.
• $10,000 scholarship – Ryan Lindeborg of Laguna Niguel, Calif., and Andrew James Swoboda of Oakton, Va.

To watch a video about the competition, click here.

The Siemens Foundation contributes in many ways to the College Board and its members. In addition to sponsoring the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology, the foundation provides encouragement to students and teachers through the Siemens Awards for Advanced Placement. New this year, the Siemens Foundation will begin the STARs (Siemens Teachers as Researchers) program for science, math and technology teachers in grades 7–12. For more information, go to www.siemensstemacademy.com. 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.