Oak Ridge Today

ORHS seniors wins $30,000 scholarship in national research competition

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Note: This story was updated, and a video of Andress and Toth added, at 1:59 p.m. Dec. 5.

They made it to the national finals in a prestigious competition for teen researchers, and on Tuesday, Oak Ridge High School seniors James Andress and A.J. Toth won a $30,000 team scholarship for their work.

Andress and Toth were one of six teams from across the country that made it to the national finals of the 2012 Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology in Washington, D.C. this past weekend. Their research could help in the development of anticancer drugs, a press release said.

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Two ORHS teams compete in Siemens Competition this week

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Two student teams from Oak Ridge High School will compete this week in the regional finals for the prestigious Siemens Competition in Math, Science, and Technology.

The two teams include James Andress and A.J. Toth, and Kyoung-A Cho and Samantha Wang. The students worked with mentors at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to develop computer programs to help find protein mutations that suppress cancer and evaluate rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.

“We were excited by the potential for machine learning to advance pharmaceutical development,” Andress said in a press release.

“My favorite part of working on this project was realizing that I could program, which I didn’t think I could do,” Wang said.

The two teams will compete in the regional finals at Georgia Institute of Technology on Friday and Saturday. A total of 93 students from 25 states are competing in six regional finals from California to Massachusetts this month.

The Siemens Competition is considered the nation’s premier research competition for high school students.

“These students have invested time, energy, and talent in tackling challenging scientific research at a young age,” Jeniffer Harper-Taylor, Siemens Foundation president, said in a recent press release. “The recognition they have won today demonstrates that engagement in STEM is an investment well worth making.”

The Siemens Competition awards one $3,000 prize to an individual and one $6,000 prize to a team at each regional competition. Winners of the regional events advance to the national finals at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., from Dec. 1-4, when $500,000 in scholarships will be awarded, including two top prizes of $100,000.

The Siemens Foundation said there were also 322 semifinalists announced this year. Local regional semifinalists included John Caughman III, Megan Kelly, and Patrick Williams.

The Siemens Foundation said 2,255 students from across the country participated in this year’s competition with a total of 1,504 projects.

Cathy Toth, mother of A.J. Toth, said Oak Ridge has won at nationals twice since 2008.

Oak Ridge student receives UT scholarship in math contest

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James Andress of Oak Ridge High School was one of 10 students who won a $4,000 annual scholarship to the University of Tennessee in an Oct. 25 math contest.

The UT-Pro2Serve Math Contest featured almost 600 students from 47 high schools.

Other scholarship winners included three students from Farragut High School in Knoxville—Melissa Yu, Alexander Selwitz, and Hyungdon Joo—and students in Brentwood, Chattanooga, Clarksville, Hendersonville, and Memphis.

The press release said the contest had two parts. All participants took a multiple-choice test on algebra and geometry called the Fundamental Exams of Remarkable Mathematical Ability and Talent (FERMAT I).

The five top scorers received a plaque. Andress was one of the top scorers. Lam Tran of Farragut High School was also a winner.

Students with the top 50 scores on the FERMAT I moved on to the FERMAT II, which included eight essay questions requiring creative and original thinking. All exams were hand-graded by faculty members from UT’s Department of Mathematics.

The second part of the contest was the Math Bowl, a double-elimination team competition. Sixty-four high school teams competed head-to-head to be the fastest to answer 10 math questions correctly, the press release said.

The contest was presented by the UT College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of Mathematics and UT alumnus Barry Goss and his technical and engineering company Professional Project Services Inc., more commonly known as Pro2Serve.