UPDATE: Dec. 11, 2013

The Siemens Foundation announced earlier today that grade 11 students Andrew Jin and Steven Wang have won a $40,000 team scholarship in this year’s Siemens Competition, making them the first Harker students to win a scholarship at the national finals since Harker students began entering the competition during the 2005-06 school year. The prize will be split evenly between the two students.

Another student from California, Eric Chen of San Diego, was this year’s individual grand prize winner of a $100,000 scholarship.

Congratulations to all!

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Andrew Jin and Steven Wang, both grade 11, won the team portion of the regional finals of this year’s Siemens Competition, held at the California Institute of Technology last weekend, netting them a shared scholarship of $6,000. They are now headed to the national finals, held Dec. 6-10 in Washington, D.C., where they will compete for as much as $100,000 in scholarships.

This marks Harker’s first appearance in the national finals since Harker students began entering the competition in 2005. Jin and Wang were thankful to their teachers – Anita Chetty, Gary Blickenstaff, Michael Pistacchi, Mala Raghavan and Chris Spenner – for their guidance and feedback on their  project, which explored the use of computer modeling and biological experiments to more quickly find anti-cancer drug treatments.

“During the days before the competition, we made a ton of changes based on your feedback, and we were able to improve the presentation significantly,” Jin said in an email. “We couldn’t have made it this far without all your help!”