Hamsa Sridhar

NEW YORK

Hamsa Sridhar, 18, of Kings Park, developed a low cost optical tweezers system for her Intel Science Talent Search physics project. An optical tweezers system uses laser light to trap and suspend microscopic particles. Hamsa designed a system consisting of a single cylinder lens, a donated laser and $1,000 worth of materials. Her simplified single lens mode converter (SLMC) demonstrated quicker alignment, decreased sensitivity to sample deviations and minimized power loss, while still enabling manipulation and three-dimensional rotation of microscopic particles at high magnification. Equivalent optical tweezers systems cost approximately $100,000. The International Society of Optical Engineering awarded Hamsa first place at last year's Intel ISEF for her research, which has applications in medical and DNA research, micromachines and microfluidic systems. Hamsa is first in her class of 328 at Kings Park High School. She has been recognized for her achievements in science, math and French, and is published in the National Anthology of Poetry. The daughter of Sridhar Vijayaraghavan and Gayathri Sridhar, Hamsa was born in India and hopes to attend MIT or Harvard.