1999 Westinghouse Science Talent Search Top Ten Winners

Updated June 26, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

First Place: $40,000 scholarship, Christopher Colin Mihelich, 17, Carmel, Ind., Park Tudor School, for study of properties of polynomials having applications to geometry and combinatorics.

Second Place: $30,000 scholarship, Ravi Vikram Shah, 17, Tempe, Ariz., Corona del Sol High School, for investigation of changes in repair genes in DNA from tumors resistant to various concentrations of cancer drugs.

Third Place: $20,000 scholarship, Parker Rouse Conrad, 17, New York City, Collegiate School, for study of two types of receptors crucial to understanding the function of nerve cells.

Fourth Place: $15,000 scholarship, Sohini Ramachandran, 15, Fair Oaks, Calif., Rio Americano High School, for project linking plant genetics and human migration by mathematically analyzing short sequences of DNA from American and Old World plant populations.

Fifth Place: $15,000 scholarship, Travis Jeremy Schedler, 17, Carbondale, Ill., Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, for project involving quantum group theory (Yang-Baxter equation), a subject at the interface of mathematics and physics.

Sixth Place: $15,000 scholarship, William J. “BJ” Greenleaf, 18, Rochester, Minn., Mayo High School, for an investigation of more effective ultrasound gene-transfer methods.

Seventh Place: $10,000 scholarship, Ann Kromsky, 17, Corona, Calif., Corona High School, for investigation of how children learn a language.

Eighth Place: $10,000 scholarship, Jonathan Adam Kelner, 17, Old Westbury, N.Y., The Wheaton School, for work on probability formulas that explain behavior of quarks.

Ninth Place: $10,000 scholarship, Patrick William Goodwill, 17, Plano, Texas, Academy of Mathematics and Science in Denton, for project in physical chemistry creating a sensor for detecting contaminants in semiconductor processing.

Tenth Place: $10,000 scholarship, Jessie Keith Anttila-Hughs, 17, New York City, Stuyvesant High School, for project designed to understand how the nervous system works in myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disease.