Magnet News: Spring 2015

For the second time in the Magnet's history, a student won first place in the Science Talent Search:

• • Senior Michael Winer won the First Place Medal of Distinction for Innovation at the 2015 Intel Science Talent Search! (Washington Post) (Silver Chips Video)

Several Blair teams have had success this spring:

• • The Science Bowl Team won the Maryland High School Science Bowl and finished in 5th place at the National Science Bowl.

• From the Math Team, Junior Eric Lu and seniors Eric Neyman, Michael Winer, and Victor Xu earned first place at the Johns Hopkins Mathematics Tournament.

  • The Computer Team won first place at the Bloomsburg University High School Programming Contest, the UVa High School Programming Contest, and the Montgomery College Programming Competition.

  • The Envirothon Team won first place at the Montgomery County Envirothon.

A few students were recently recognized in the press:

• • Seniors Kevin Zhang and James Liao were the subject of a Gazette article about their mobile app business.

  • Freshman Katherine Wu was the subject of a U.S. News & World Report article about young inventors.

Many students won awards at the Montgomery County Science Fair, and the Magnet Class of 2004 also presented awards there:

• Senior Eric Neyman won an ISEF Award, and he will compete at Intel ISEF in Pittsburgh on May 10-15th. Senior Jared Marx-Kuo was the first alternate.

• Biology: Ishaan Parikh (1st), Stephanie Rager (2nd), and Nola Chen (3rd), Connie Xu, Katherine Wu, and Shriyash Upadhyay (Hon.)

• Chemistry: Danayt Alem (1st), and Mehana Daftary and Binayak Bhattari (Hon.)

• Computer Science & Mathematics: Sachin Pandey (2nd)

• Engineering: Melissa Benzandry (Hon.)

• Physics: Noah Singer, Elliot Kienzle, and Theo Tosini (2nd), and Qingning Fan (3rd)

Two Magnet students won special honors outside of school:

• • Junior Sabrina Martin performed at Carnegie Hall on February 22.

  • Sophomore Kinjal Ruecker won the Pennsylvania/Maryland/Delaware/DC Skiing Championship for girls under 16 (pdf). She was part of the U16 State Team at the 2015 Eastern Region Junior Championships.

Several students are in the process of qualifying for Olympiad teams:

• • 16 students were named as semifinalists for the 2015 U.S. Physics Team: Seniors Adam Busis, Theodore Corrales, Matthew Das Sarma, Catherine Xue, Eric Neyman, Bendeguz Offertaler, Michael Winer, Victor Xu, Dennis Zhao, and Jared Marx-Kuo; juniors Cynthia Lu, Jeremy Du, Eric Lu, and Raymond Lin; and sophomore Sambuddha Chattopadhyay. (Silver Chips)

• Nine students were named semifinalists for the 2015 U.S. Biology Team: Sophomore Alex Miao, Junior Arnold Mong, Senior Bendeguz Offertaler, Junior Anna Ou, Sophomore Lara Shonkwiler, Junior Caitlyn Singam, Senior Brenda Wu, Senior Victor Xu, and Senior Catherine Xue.

• Five students qualified for the second round for the Computational Linguistics Olympiad: Seniors Alan Li, Arun Ramamurthy, and Victor Xu; and Juniors Victoria Tsai and Josephine Yu.

  • Seniors Arjuna Subramanian and Victor Su qualified for the U.S. National Chemistry Olympiad National Exam.