61st Annual STS (2001–2002)
Finalists
Dheera Venkatraman

NEW JERSEY
Dheera Venkatraman, 17, of Flemington, entered a physics project in the Intel Science Talent Search -- a study of the effects of wind on lightning. At Hunterdon Central Regional High School, Dheera has conducted an assortment of experiments on the school's Van de Graaff electrostatic generator. Curiosity about the shape of the electrical discharge from the machine -- a form of artificial lightning -- led Dheera to wonder about factors that affect the shape of natural lightning. He devised an experiment that measures simulated lightning strikes on a flat metal surface, from which he concluded that lightning tends to bend into wind flow rather than with it, a phenomenon that he believes may be explained by pressure differences. Dheera has a particular interest in devices that may appear to defy logic or scientific principles -- levitation, for example -- because "they bring science far into the real, tangible world." Born in India, Dheera plays the violin and piano. He participated in orchestra exchanges to Singapore and Taipei when he was a student at the International School of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. The son of Ranganathan and Bharathy Venkatraman, he hopes to attend MIT.