A pair of budding computer geniuses from Albuquerque Academy who designed software to probe how cancer develops captured the top prize Tuesday during awards ceremonies for the New Mexico High School Adventures in Supercomputing Challenge held at the Laboratory.
Karalyn Baca and Punit Shah’s project, “A Computer Program for Tracking Cancer Development and Movement,” earned each of the students a $1,000 U.S. Savings Bond, while their teacher, Jim Mims, received a Hewlett-Packard computer monitor for his classroom.
"We're really excited and would like to thank everyone who has helped us on this," said Punit Shah of Albuquerque Academy.
Now in its 15th year, the Challenge is open to any New Mexico high-school or middle-school student. Over the past year, a total of 77 teams of students from 33 schools researched thorny scientific problems, developed sophisticated computer programs, learned computer science with mentors from the state’s national laboratories and other organizations, and got the opportunity to run their programs on some of the world’s most powerful computers.
The goal of the year-long event is to increase knowledge of science and computing; expose students and teachers to computers and applied mathematics; and instill enthusiasm for science in middle- and high-school students, their families and communities. Participating students improve their understanding of technology by developing skills in scientific inquiry, modeling, computing, communications and teamwork.
Baca and Shah, whose mentor is Dr. Gene Wong, also captured the Student’s Choice Award, The Albuquerque Tribune Lighthouse Award and the prize for the best technical poster. They will share a $100 cash prize for the poster, which will grace the cover of the document containing final reports from all teams. Shah took home the Laboratory Environmental Award last year for a wildfire simulation.
Another health model earned second place in the competition for a team from Silver High School. Adam Cummings, Cyrus Marcum and David Saxton each won a $750 Savings Bond for their project, “Statistical Modeling of the AIDS Virus,” while their teacher, Peggy Larisch, received a projection system for her classroom. The Silver High team also received Fat Cow's Best HyperText Markup Language Award. The team’s mentor was Berry Estes.
“The Adventures in Supercomputing Challenge provides high school and junior high students with the opportunity of a lifetime; the chance to run a program on a high-performance computer at Los Alamos,” said Joe Watts of Actinide and Fuel Cycle Technologies (NMT-11), who served as master of ceremonies.
“Beyond that, the Challenge gives young minds obstruction-free interactions with a tremendous group of dedicated mentors that includes scientists, business leaders, educators and government officials. These mentors care deeply about young people and their educations, great science and the creation of a successful new crop of highly educated New Mexicans,” Watts said.
Two teams won honorable mentions and $100 each. Another team from Albuquerque Academy, Charlie Clauss, Alfredo Davila, Thien-Cam Nguyen, Matt Strange and Jennifer Turner, were recognized for their cosmic project to simulate theories of how the solar system formed. The Albuquerque Academy team’s solar system study also was recognized by the Society for Technical Communications as the Best Written Report, and received the Cray High Performance Award.
The other honorable mention went to a team from Albuquerque’s Sandia Preparatory School who developed mathematical models for the spread of smallpox. The Sandia Prep team of Alex Clement, Greg Fenchel, Jayson Lynch and Beryl Wootton also won the Judge’s Special Recognition Award for Grace under Fire.
Several Challenge participants got a boost for their educational dreams thanks to their outstanding work on Challenge projects. A total of $21,000 in individual scholarships were awarded on Tuesday at Los Alamos. Scholarship winners included the following:
* John Sneller, Melrose High — New Mexico State University Engineering, $2,500
* Sasha Ogas, Silver High — NMSU, $2,500
* Annie Hohmann, Bloomfield High — Intel, $2,500
* Adam Cummings, Silver High — New Mexico Tech, $2,400
* John Korbin, Sandia Prep — Weirich & Associates, $1,500
* Jonathan Wood, Melrose High — Eastern New Mexico University, $1,300
* Dominic Cicero, Melrose High — Mesa Analytics & Computing, $500
* Punit Shah, Albuquerque Academy — The Council of Higher Education Computing and Communication Services, or CHECS, $500 scholarship awarded at random during the ceremony.
About 120 students from 36 of the teams presented their research to a team of volunteer judges on Monday and discussed poster displays of their computing projects at the Los Alamos Research Park. They also toured the Laboratory’s supercomputing centers and heard talks and demonstrations by Laboratory researchers.
New Mexico State Speaker of the House Rep. Ben Lujan, D-Santa Fe, and his chief of staff, Regis Pecos, presented awards during Tuesday’s ceremonies and were honored for their legislative efforts along with Bill Heimbach, state liaison for the Laboratory’s Government Relations (GRO) Office. U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman sent a video message to the students during Tuesday’s ceremony.
The Governor’s Award was presented to the Challenge in recognition of its 15th successful year. Accepting the award were David Kratzer of High Performance Computing Systems (CCN-7), longtime coordinator of the challenge, and Bill Blackler, president of the Challenge Board of Directors.
Special awards included the Ben Lujan Leadership Award, which went to Mary Herrmann, volunteer parent from Shiprock High, who assisted teacher Vernetta Noble and modeled leadership for all the Shiprock students. Teacher of the Year was Alan Daugherty of Melrose High, who was nominated by his students.
At the awards ceremonies, several other student supercomputing projects received prizes:
Conrad Greaves, Kelly Dickey and V. Brynne Jojola from Bosque School received the Search and Browse Award from the Council for Higher Education Computing Services Inc. for best research for their project on AIDS in South Africa.
The Farmington High School team of Michael Blount, Caitlin McCarthy, Zachary Blackwood and Nathaniel Ayoub captured the Creativity and Innovation Award from Sandia National Laboratories for "The Sound of Encryption.”
The IBM teamwork award went to a Bosque School team of James Scantlan, Chloe Williams and Colin Williams for their project, “Shining Light on Dark Matter.” The team also won the best Graphic Poster Award, which will be the basis for next year's Challenge logo, Web page and t-shirts.
A Santa Fe High team of Caitlin Armijo and Dahlia Musharrafieh won for the Best Use of StarLogo, presented by the Santa Fe Institute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory Environmental Award went to Rio Rancho High’s Christopher Morrison for his study of wildfire behavior.
Sasha Ogas and David Potts of Silver High took home the Science is Fun award for studying “The Rhythm of Hailstones.”
Judges' Special Recognition Awards for Best Mathematical Model went to Santa Fe High’s Taryn Flock for a study of Predator/Prey Relationships; and for Best Methodology to Silver High’s Benjamin Fox and Kyle Youngs for a study of teen gambling addiction.
The New Mexico Network for Women in Science and Engineering gave its award to the Shiprock High team of Kymberly Brown and Martha Hughes for their study of power plants. They also were chosen for a special Teacher’s Choice Award by students and teachers participating in the poster displays.
The Siemens Middle School Award went to Jessica Stultz, Joanna Silver and Thomas Silver of Santa Fe’s Capshaw Middle School.
Teacher Appreciation Awards went to to: Mike DeField, Farmington High; Anita Gerlach, Santa Fe High; Peggy Larisch, Silver High; Shirley Maurer, Farmington High; Neil McBeth, Sandia Prep; and Steve Schum, Manzano High.
The original New Mexico High School Supercomputing Challenge began in 1990. It merged with Adventures in Supercomputing in 2002 to create the Adventures in Supercomputing Challenge.
The Adventures in Supercomputing Challenge is sponsored by the Laboratory, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Defense Programs and the New Mexico State Legislature. Educational Partners are CHECS, Eastern New Mexico University, MIT Starlogo, New Mexico Highlands University, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, New Mexico Department of Education, New Mexico State University, University of New Mexico, San Juan Community College, Santa Fe Community College, the Santa Fe Institute and Tennessee State University.
Gold Commercial Partners include Hewlett-Packard, Lockheed-Martin, Sandia National Laboratories and the Siemens Foundation. Silver Commercial Partners are Cray Inc., Computer Corner, Gulfstream Group and bigbyte.cc, Intel Corp., VanDyke Software Inc. and ZiaNet.
Bronze Commercial Partners are the Albuquerque Tribune, Larry Donahue, FatCow, IBM, Mesa Analytics and Computing, New Mexico Student Loans and New Mexico Internet Professionals Association.
More information on the New Mexico Adventures in Supercomputing Challenge can be found at http://www.challenge.nm.org/ online, while final student reports are available at http://www.challenge.nm.org/FinalReports/ online.
