Senior places third in Intel STS

On Mar 11, Senior Anatoly Preygel won third place and a $50,000 scholarship in the 2003 Intel Science Talent Search, a competition often referred to as the "Junior Nobel Prize," for his project Computation of Quandle Cocycle Knot Invariants.

According to the Science Service press release (http://www.sciserv.org/sts/62sts/winners.asp; opens in new window), Preygel "addressed the hard question of when two knots are the same (isotopic). Using 'quandle coloring,' he gives a new invariant, 'degree,' and shows how to compute it."

All 40 finalists were brought to the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. for Mar 6-11 to present and meet leading scientists.

"I'm thrilled for him," said Magnet Research Coordinator Glenda Torrence. "He's very deserving because of all his hard work. Work isn't just what you do physically. He spent a lot of mental work doing this problem."

However, Torrence refuses to take any praise for Preygel's success. "It has nothing to do with me," she said. "My knowledge on knot theory is zero."

Last year, Blair alumni Jennifer Alyono, Jacob Burnim and Jean Li were selected as finalists and attended the week-long event held annually in Washington, D.C. They each received a $5,000 scholarship for placing in the top 40. None of the three placed in the top 10.

This year, the first place award of $100,000 went to Jamie Rubin of Florida, who conducted research on targeting a family of enzymes to treat a fungal infection, and second place ($75,000) went to Tianhui Li from Oregon, who studied inertial-electrostatic confinement.

More information coming soon.