The four Siemens Competition regional finalists and sophomore Samyukta Yagati presented their research to students and faculty today during long lunch, covering topics from music to multiple myeloma.

WiSTEM worked in conjunction with Research Club to organize the event. According to WiSTEM co-president Lorraine Wong (12), the clubs wanted to inspire students to embrace science and even conduct their own research.

“We wanted to promote that science doesn’t just stop inside the classroom. Hopefully people [took] away that there are a lot of directions you can go in,” Lorraine said.

For senior Ashvin Swaminathan, whose project looked at the uses of surreal numbers in calculus, presenting in the Nichols auditorium was a new experience.

“This was my first time presenting in an auditorium. I’ve never actually presented with a microphone before, so it was a good way to gain some experience,” he said.

He particularly enjoyed the question and answer session that followed his presentation. Though few audience members were experts in his field of study, Ashvin feels that “the best questions come from people who don’t really know about [his] project,” since they help him clarify his points.

In addition to the finalists, Samyukta presented research that she did at COSMOS, a science summer camp for high school students. The camp requires researchers to present their findings to an audience, so she decided to use the Upper School as a venue to share her research on distant galaxies.

“I was particularly interested in astronomy because I knew so little about it,” Samyukta said. “There’s something about stars and space that seems so mysterious and so different from the rules that govern Earth.”

The Siemens regional finalists will travel to the California Institute of Technology in Southern California this weekend, all vying to become a Siemens Competition National Winner, as well as winning the 100,000-dollar prize.