Students Earn Top Awards at 34th annual Research Science Institute
Winners from seven states and two countries
at prestigious six-week summer academic research program
McLean, VA (August 9, 2017) – Outstanding high school STEM students from seven U.S. states and Singapore and Spain were the top award winners at the Center for Excellence in Education’s (CEE) 34th annual Research Science Institute (RSI) held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Awardees were recognized at RSI’s closing convocation for their summer research excellence, as judged by a panel of seven experts from academia and business. RSI is offered cost-free by CEE to competitively selected top achieving students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
CEE’s 2017 RSI honorees and their research projects are:
Colorado
Isani Singh, Cherry Creek High School, Greenwood Village
“Investigating the Developmental Requirements of Sex Chromosome Genes Affected in Turner Syndrome” (Award for Oral Presentation)
Maryland
David Wu, Montgomery Blair High School, Silver Spring
“Nonuniform Distributions of Patterns of Sequences of Primes in Prime Moduli” (Award for Written Presentation)
Mississippi
Charley Hutchison, Saint Andrew Episcopal School, Ridgeland
“Kinetics and Thermodynamics of Deeply-Supercooled Liquids” (Award for Written Presentation)
North Carolina
Sophia Luo, North Carolina School of Science and Math, Durham
“Modulating Pro-Inflammatory Macrophage Phenotype through re-polarization by Hyaluronic Acid Nanoparticle Delivery of miRNA” (Award for Written Presentation)
Texas
Michelle Yakubek, Texas Academy of Math and Science, Denton
“Quantitative Analysis of Diachronic Characteristics in Beowulf and Other Old English Poems” (Award for Written Presentation)
Virginia
Marissa Sumathipala, Broad RunHigh School, Ashburn
“Network-Based miRNA-Disease Model for Enhancing Drug Discovery” (Award for Oral Presentation)
Washington
Anne Lee, Stem High School, Redmond
“A New Design Guideline of Mixed B-site Perovskites for Water Splitting” (Awards for both Oral and Written Presentation)
Singapore
Timothy Tan Zhen Xin, Hwa Chong Institution, Singapore
“Efficacy of Taxoid Nanoemulsions Against Mouse Pancreatic Cancer” (Award for Oral Presentation)
Spain
Silvia Casacuberta, Aula Escola Europea, Barcelona
“On the Divisibility of Binomial Coefficients” (Award for Oral Presentation)
“These scholars are our future creators, inventors, scientists and leaders of the 21st century, and their research represents a high level of academic acumen,” said Joann P. DiGennaro, CEE President. “RSI students are grateful for the opportunity to experience graduate-level research and camaraderie with other academically talented STEM students.”
CEE annually selects 80 top achieving U.S. high school and international scholars for RSI. The intensive, six-week summer program gives students the opportunity to conduct original, cutting-edge science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) research in state-of-the-art university laboratories, hospitals and corporate research facilities in Boston and Cambridge, MA. CEE’s committee of professional educators and RSI alumni selects students based on high school records, personal essays, standardized test scores, teacher recommendations, research experience, potential for leadership, and honors and awards in math and science.
The 2017 RSIsummer program (June 25 to Aug. 5) included one week of theoretical classroom work, followed by four-and-a-half weeks of high-level research under the mentorship of leading scientists, engineers, and researchersin the students’ respective areas of interest. In their final week, students representing 35 states and 15 countries demonstrated their research work through written academic papers and oral presentations to their peers and the panel of judges.
In addition to 50 U.S. high school rising seniors, 30 international students participated this summer from Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, India, Lebanon, Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.
CEE’s nearly 2,800 successful alumni have a STEM career retention rate of 80 percent and benefit from the Center’s referral, networking and enrichment activities throughout their collegiate and professional careers.
About the Center for Excellence in Education
The Center for Excellence in Education was founded in 1983 by the late Admiral H.G. Rickover and Joann P. DiGennaro, President of the Center. The Center's mission is to nurture high school and university scholars to careers of excellence and leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and to encourage collaboration between and among leaders in the global community. CEE’s programs include the Research Science Institute (RSI), the USA Biology Olympiad (USABO), and the Teacher Enrichment Program (TEP).
| Media Contact: | Christopher Sedlock, 703-448-9062 ext. 223 |
| Resources: | Joann DiGennaro, 703-448-9062 ext. 239 |
| Maite Ballestero, 703-448-9062 ext. 235 |
Related websites:
Center for Excellence in Education: https://www.cee.org/
Research Science Institute: https://www.cee.org/research-science-institute