ACADEMIA

A pair of budding mathematicians from Albuquerque Manzano High School who wrote mathematical codes typical of those used in cryptography and mathematical error correction captured the top prize Tuesday during awards ceremonies for the New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge held at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Kristin Cordwell and Chen Zhao's project, "Finding Inverses in Finite Fields," earned the students a $1,000 U.S. Savings Bond, while their teacher, Steve Schum, received a projection system for his classroom. The team's mentor is William Cordwell, a Sandia National Laboratories staff member. The Manzano High team also received the Cray High Performance Award. Now in its 16th year, the Challenge is open to any New Mexico high-school or middle-school student. Over the past year, more than 200 students from 24 schools around the state 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. A Las Cruces High School team earned second place in the competition for their project, "Can You See the Hot Spots?" a computer program that scans a bone scan pixel-by-pixel for hot spot areas, eliminating the need for radiologists to search a bone scan for hot spots, potentially cancerous areas in bones. The team of Julia Silva, Daniel Parrott, Alan Hshieh and Jerry Yeh each won a $500 Savings Bond. Their teacher, Greg Marez, received an HP camera printer with extra memory and software. The team's mentor was Puneet Ghei. The team also won the Albuquerque Tribune's Lighthouse Award for best overall presentation and a Student's Choice special award selected by students and teachers. Three teams won honorable mention awards and will receive a U.S. Savings Bond. A team from Las Cruces' Onate High School, were recognized for their project "Expanding on the Pythagorean Theorem." Team members Brett Beckett, Kevin Christeson, Kyle Fitzpatrick and Meghan Scott also received the Creativity and Innovation Award from Sandia National Laboratories. Another honorable mention went to the Rio Rancho High School team for "Analytical Fire Modeling: Fire in its Environment." The team consists of Nicholas Kutac and Christopher Morrison. The team also received the Best Written Report award from the Society for Technical Communications. The third honorable mention award went to the Albuquerque St. Pius X High School team of Ryan Loyd, Matthew Paiz and Mark Wunsch for their project, "Dynamic Software Evolution: An Evolutionary Approach to Artificial Intelligence." Several Challenge participants got a boost for their educational dreams thanks to their outstanding work on Challenge projects. A total of $95,000 in individual scholarships - $80,000 from Los Alamos' Computing and Computational Sciences Division - were awarded on Tuesday at Los Alamos. Scholarship winners included the following: * William Downs, Las Cruces High - New Mexico State University Engineering, $2,500 * Kyle Kitzpatrick, Las Cruces Onate High -Intel Corp., $2,500 * Samantha Stutz, Los Alamos High School, Los Alamos National Laboratory, $10,000 a year for four years * Nicholas Kutac, Rio Rancho High School, Los Alamos National Laboratory, $10,000 * Michael Scott, Melrose High - Eastern New Mexico University, $2,000, Monte Mitzelfelt Memorial Scholarship, $1,000 Stephanie McAllister, Albuquerque Manzano High, Los Alamos National Laboratory, $10,000 * Matthew Paiz, Albuquerque St. Pius X High School, Los Alamos National Laboratory, $5,000 * Ryan Loyd, Albuquerque St. Pius X High School, Los Alamos National Laboratory, $5,000 * Mark Wunsch, Albuquerque St. Pius X High School, Los Alamos National Laboratory, $5,000 * Raquel Hill, Navajo Preparatory School, University of New Mexico, $2,500 * Rochelle Vander, Navajo Preparatory School, New Mexico State University, $2,500 * Jane Kim, Las Cruces Onate High School, Los Alamos National Laboratory, $5,000. At Los Alamos, students presented their research to a team of volunteer judges on Monday and discussed poster displays of their computing projects. They also toured the Laboratory's supercomputing centers and heard talks and demonstrations by Laboratory researchers. Supercomputing Board President William Blackler and Regis Pecos, chief of staff to Speaker of the House Rep. Ben Lujan, D-Santa Fe, presented awards during Tuesday's ceremonies, which also was attended by State Rep. Jeannette Wallace, R-Los Alamos, Sandoval. U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., also sent a video message to the students during Tuesday's ceremony. The Governor's Award was presented to Richard Allen, a retired Sandia National Laboratories staff member now with the University of New Mexico, past member of the Challenge's Board of Directors. Special awards included the Ben Lujan Leadership Award, which went to Irene Lee and Nick Bennett for their support of the Challenge's management team. Numerous other student supercomputing projects received prizes on Tuesday: - Raquel Hill and Rochelle Vandever of Navajo Preparatory School received the Research Award from the Council for Higher Education Computing Services Inc., for best research for their project called "Traveling Virus." - The Council for Higher Education Computing Services Inc. also gave a Teamwork award to the Onate High School team of Brittany Atteberry, Mihyun Hong, Jane Kim, Erica Swensen and Natalie Wells for their project "Hydrogen Vehicles and their Atmospheric Effect." - The Albuquerque Academy team of Karalyn Baca, Franklin Orndorff-Plunkett and Punit Shah received iniCom Networks Inc.'s Best HTML Award for their project, "Preventing Inbreeding." 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. The three students will share a $200 cash prize. - Stephanie McAllister and Vincent Moore of Albuquerque Eldorado and Manzano High respectively received the best Technical Poster Award. They will share a $200 cash prize. - A Shiprock High team of Martha Hughes, Polito Walters and Andrew Yazzie won for the Best Use of StarLogo, presented by the Santa Fe Institute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology for their project "The Invasive Russian Olive." The team also received the Teachers' Choice team award. - The Los Alamos National Laboratory Environmental Award went to Santa Fe Indian School's Eveli Abeyta for the project "An Herbaceous Vegetation Study." - The Multimedia Award from BX Internet was given to the Shiprock High team of Dakota Dee, Jeralea Hilgartner and Lache Yazzie for their project "Red Tide." Sarah Armstrong, Joseph Koby, Venessa Trujillo and Juan Antonio Vigil of McCurdy School in Española took home the Science is Fun award for their computer project "Computer Modeling of an Asymmetric Capacitor." Two Judges' Special Recognition awards were given: The Extra Mile Award went to the Melrose High School team of Amanda Russell, Jessica Cano, Toby Turner and Lorenzo Lopez for their project "Fruit Flies," while the Integrating Computation into Anthropology Award went to Daniel Pedro of Santa Fe Indian School for his project "Scan of the Past." A judge's special award also was given to Eleanor Walther, head expo judge. The New Mexico Network for Women in Science and Engineering gave its award to the Shiprock High team of Josephine Begay, Rochelle Begay, Jerrin Nez, Karina Todechine and Tierra Todechine for their project "Unwanted," which looked at the effects of spaying and neutering on dog populations. The Middle School Award was given to Rio Rancho Mid High for their project "Modeling Airflow over Airfoil." Team members are Alex Baker and Gunther Wong. Teacher Appreciation Awards went to: Kate Sallah, Santa Fe Indian School, Debra Loftin, Rio Rancho Mid High School, Neil McBeth, Sandia Preparatory and Hahn Nguyen, Socorro High School. First year teachers successfully completing the Challenge are David Bailey, Santa Fe School for the Arts, Randy Gaylord and Jim Orth, Artesia High, Marie Levy Ryan, Albuquerque High, Greg Marez, Las Cruces High, Diane Medford, Los Alamos High and Hahn Nguyen of Socorro High School. 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 Supercomputing Challenge is sponsored by Los Alamos National Laboratory and the New Mexico Legislature. Educational Partners are the Council for Higher Education Computing Services Inc. (CHECS), Eastern New Mexico University, MIT StarLogo, New Mexico Highlands University, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, New Mexico Public Education Department, New Mexico State University, San Juan College, Santa Fe Community College, Santa Fe Institute and the University of New Mexico. The Gold Commercial Partners are Lockheed-Martin, Sandia National Laboratories and the Siemens Foundation. Silver Commercial Partners are Gulfstream Group and bigbyte.cc, HP, Intel Corporation and ZiaNet. Bronze Commercial Partners are the Albuquerque Tribune, Apogentech, NMITSA, BX Internet, iniCom Networks Inc. Lobo Internet Services and the New Mexico Internet Professionals Association.