Winners of Prestigious Student Science Awards Are Named

Practical advances in medicine ruled the day in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology, one of the nation’s most coveted student science awards, whose winners were announced Monday morning at New York University.

While highly regarded, a Tamari lattice, a mathematical structure, and Bax and Bak, two proteins, lost out to a project by Wen Chyan, 17, a senior at the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science in Denton, Tex. Mr. Wen won the top individual prize — a $100,000 scholarship — for research on fighting hospital-related infections with antimicrobial coatings for medical devices.

For genetics research that has the potential to identify new chemotherapeutic drugs and improve existing ones, Sajith M. Wickramasekara and Andrew Y. Guo, both 17 and seniors at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, N.C., took home $50,000 each — the top team prize.

Trailing not far behind, four high school seniors in the New York region won a total of $100,000 in scholarships.

“We’re breaking the blond stereotype,” said Alexander Saeboe, 17, a fair-haired student at Somers Central High School in Lincolndale, N.Y., in Westchester County, who, with his blond teammate, Eugenia Volkova, 17, of John Jay High School in Cross River, N.Y., also in Westchester, placed second, splitting a $50,000 scholarship. The students met while making particles at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where they volunteered during summers and researched together. They evaluated a contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging.

Nityan Nair, 17, of Hastings High School in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., won a $40,000 individual scholarship for his physics research on optical vortices in nanomechanics, which he conducted at Stony Brook University’s Laser Teaching Center; last summer, he commuted three hours each way, from Westchester to Long Island, to complete his work.

For his research on improving the ability of computers to translate one language to another, Hayden C. Metsky, 17, of Millburn High School in Millburn, N.J., won $10,000. He tested it using Urdu, which, because of word ordering, is particularly difficult to translate.

The Siemens competition, first held in 1998, is distinct from the Intel Science Talent Search, formerly known as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. Many high school students enter both.

This year, nearly 1,900 students entered the Siemens competition nationwide, an increase of more than 16 percent from last year. After a round of regional judging, 18 finalists were chosen to present their projects at New York University and compete for scholarships ranging from $10,000 to $100,000.

The competition was administered by the College Board and sponsored by the Siemens Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Siemens AG, a global electronics and engineering company.

For some of the individual entrants, it marked the end of hundreds of hours of work, often spent in isolation.

But for the winning teammates, Mr. Saeboe and Ms. Volkova, it was an opportunity to solidify their bond.

Good-humored though competitive, Ms. Volkova has a 4.0 grade point average perfect SAT scores and seven Advanced Placement classes. Mr. Saeboe has a 3.8 grade point average, “better SAT IIs” and three A.P. classes, he said. Both have applied early decision to Columbia University.

“I’m not as intelligent or diligent,” explained Mr. Saeboe, whose shaggy bangs nearly obscured his eyes. “But the key to a sharp mind is a sharp body,” he said, adding that he is a snowboard and karate devotee, when not quarantined in the magnetic resonance imaging lab.