Intel STS

Senior Johnathan Ma was named one of 40 finalists in the country in the Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS) on Jan. 20.

Along with Vineet Kosaraju (12), Sophia Luo (12), and Sadhika Malladi (12), Jonathan was named a semifinalist on Jan. 6.

The Society for Science and the Public, which hosts the competition, chose 300 semifinalists out of  over 1,750 applicants from 512 schools across the nation.

Jonathan credits much of his success in his project, titled “Genomics-based Cancer Drug Response Prediction through the Adaptive Elastic Net,” to the research experiences that he has gained in previous years.

“When I was in eighth grade, a partner and I did a project on physics on solar panels, and that, although obviously a middle school project, opened my eyes to the world of science research as a whole, and through high school I’ve continued to develop that interest,” he said.

Sadhika has been researching since her freshman year, when she decided to take her computer science skills outside of the classroom. Her project is titled “Application of EMDomics to Identify Age-associated Expression and Treatments in Cancer.” She plans to continue researching in future years.

“I think research is a really continuous process, and a lot of the projects that I’ve been working on haven’t been published yet,” she said. “It’s never something that really ends, so I’m looking forward to continuing it.”

The Intel foundation gives each finalist $1,000 and an additional $1,000 for their school.

Including this year, Harker has had 70 semifinalists and 9 finalists since 2005, three of whom came from last year’s competition.

The finalists will all be flown to Washington D.C. from March 10-16 and winners will be announced on the March 15 in the categories of Global Good, Basic Research and Innovation.