Teen Genius from Lexington Wins $150K Science Prize

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A Lexington teenager won the top $150,000 prize in Intel’s Science Talent Search Tuesday.

Noah Golowich, 17, beat out nearly 1,800 students and claimed one of the three $150,000 prize awards during a ceremony in Washington, D.C. Tuesday. He was recognized in the “basic research” category.

“Noah developed a proof in the area of Ramsey theory, a field of mathematics based on finding types of structure in large and complicated systems,” Intel said in a statement. “(Golowich) demonstrate(s) exceptional scientific potential through depth of research and analysis.”

The other two winners were:

• Andrew Jin, 17, of San Jose, Calif., won the Medal of Distinction for Global Good, for using machine learning algorithms to identify adaptive mutations across the full human genome. After he “taught” the computer how to recognize adaptive mutations, his system discovered more than 100 of them in real-life DNA sequences.
• Michael Hofmann Winer, 18, of North Bethesda, Md., won the Medal of Distinction for Innovation, for studying how fundamental quasi-particles of sound called phonons interact with electrons.

Photo credit: Intel