Local Delaware Valley Science Fair Winners Earn Special Awards at Intel International Science and Engineering Fair

Society for Science and the Public, in partnership with the Intel Foundation, announced Special Awards of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) 2015. Student winners are ninth through twelfth graders who earned the right to compete at the Intel ISEF 2015 by winning a top prize at a local, regional, state, or national fair.

American Mathematical Society Award

Shashwat Kishore, 12th grade, Unionville High School, committed to Harvard for his future education.

Project: “Signatures of Multiplicity Spaces in Tensor Products of sl2 and Uq(sl2) Representations.”

If you’re not a mathematician, you might wonder what his project title means. Here, Shashwat explains it in his own words, and he tells how he got started in advanced math research.

“I worked in a field of math called representation theory, where we model (or represent) abstract objects in math using matrices. For example, the set of rotational symmetries (the 0, 90, 180, 270 degree rotations) of a square forms an abstract object called a group, and we can represent the group with rotation matrices. The same object might have many representations, and some of the most important representations are the so-called unitary representations. The main result of my work was that I identified unitary representations for an object for which we previously didn’t know any unitary representations.

I’d been interested in math for a long time, and I had worked on mathematical-oriented research projects in the past. But I’d never before done advanced pure math research, so I wanted to try that. I applied to and was accepted at two research programs in eleventh grade, MIT-PRIMES-USA and the Research Science Institute, and that was how I got started on my project. The background material was very difficult, but I persevered through it and eventually got to work on completely new, open problems. It was easily one of the most important experiences in my life.”

Special Awards from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and National Anti-Vivesection Society (NAVS), and full scholarship to West Virginia University

Ralph Ignacio Lawton, 16, PA Leadership Charter School,

Project: “Don’t Be Led Ashtray.”

Ralph’s project dealt with a hot topic these days, and here’s how he describes it:

“My work had to do with electronic cigarettes and their toxicological effects. While electronic cigarette use has skyrocketed over the past several years, the research into their effects on people’s health has not moved at the same rate, and as a result, their effects are unknown. I showed that electronic cigarettes have a severe toxic effect on lung cells, and they also have a severe inflammatory effect.

DVSF really has a great mentorship program that helped me with my project. They matched me with one of the leading experts about electronic cigarettes, and he helped me to finalize my protocol and analyze my data. Our relationship worked really well, and I’ll be continuing my work in his lab this summer.”

Each finalist at the 67th Delaware Valley Science Fairs is one of 14 students who won the opportunity to compete in Intel ISEF in Pittsburgh in May.

About the Delaware Valley Science Fairs

Since 1949, the Delaware Valley Science Fairs have stimulated interest in science, engineering and technology among middle and high school students in the tri-state region. DVSF’s philosophy is that students learn science by doing science. Its mission is to bring together parents, teachers and industry leaders to motivate and nurture young people’s curiosity in science and problem solving as we build lifelong learners.

For more information, visit www.DVSF.org or call Henry Disston, Executive Director, at: 215-895-5840.