11 Society alumni receive Davidson Fellowships

Almost a dozen Society for Science & the Public alumni were recognized with fellowships from the Davidson Foundation on September 21, 2016 at the annual fellowship award ceremony.

Twenty recipients total in the fields of science, engineering, music, literature, technology, math, and an “out-of-the-box” category were honored with awards. Eleven Society alumni of the Regeneron Science Talent Search (previously the Intel STS), Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, and Broadcom MASTERS competitions were included.

Below are the Society alumni who received Davidson Fellowships:

2016 Davidson Fellows 

$50,000 scholarships

• Meena Jagadeesan, 18, Naperville, Illinois, won a top scholarship. Meena was a 2016 Intel STS finalist. Her project is titled: The Exchange Graphs of Weakly Separated Collections.
• Christopher Lindsay, 17, Honolulu, Hawaii, won a top scholarship. Christopher was a 2014 and 2015 Intel ISEF finalist. His project is titled: Kahakai to Hohonukai: Environmental Studies of Marine Biota Using Underwater Time-Lapse Photography and Multiple Camera Arrays at Various Depths.
• Sriharshita Musunuri, 16, Mill Creek, Washington, won a top scholarship. Sriharshita was a 2015 and 2016 Intel ISEF finalist. Her project is titled: Application of Tetrahedrite and Magnesium Silicide in a Novel Thermoelectric Unicouple to Generate Electricity from Industrial Waste Heat.

$25,000 scholarships

• Anurudh Ganesan, 16, Clarksburg, Maryland, won a $25,000 scholarship. Anurudh was a 2016 Intel ISEF finalist. His project is titled: VAXXWAGON: An Innovative Eco-Friendly “No Ice, No Electric” Active Refrigeration System for Last-Leg Vaccine Transportation. Anurudh’s grandparents had to carry him to a vaccine facility in Southern India. Based on his experience, he created a small refrigerator powered by the turn of a wheel to store and transport vaccines. After five iterations of his prototype, Anurudh said the most important thing was learning the science behind building a refrigerator and that failure is just an opportunity to learn more.
• Raghav Ganesh, 14, San Jose, California, won a $25,000 scholarship. Raghav was a 2014 Broadcom MASTERS finalist, and a semifinalist in 2015. His project is titled: Serene: An Assistive Biomedical System for Autism Spectrum Disorder.
• Katherine Hudek, 17, Grafton, Massachusetts, won a $25,000 scholarship. Katherine was a 2016 Intel STS semifinalist. Her project is titled: Science: Quacee: A new Quantum Programming Language for Specifying Quantum Computations.
• Wyatt Pontius, 18, Sterling, Virginia, won a $25,000 scholarship. Wyatt was a 2015 and 2016 Intel ISEF finalist. His project is titled: Science: Reinventing the Leaf: A Novel Biohypbrid Photosynthetic System.
• Maya Varma, 18, Cupertino, California, won a $25,000 scholarship. Maya was a 2016 Intel STS finalist, a 2015 Intel ISEF special award winner, and a 2011 and 2012 Broadcom MASTERS semifinalist. Her project is titled: A Wireless Smartphone-Based System for Diagnosis of Pulmonary Illnesses.

$10,000 scholarships

• Surabhi Mundada, 17, Olympia, Washington, won a $10,000 scholarship. Surabhi was a 2014-2016 Intel ISEF finalist. Her project is titled: MyGlove: Assisting Hand Movements, Grip, and Tremor. Surabhi wants to create a higher quality lifestyle for those with limited movement from tremors.
• Kavita Selva, 16, Houston, Texas, won a $10,000 scholarship. Kavita was a 2016 Intel ISEF third place award winner in physics and a 2014-2015 Intel ISEF finalist. Her project is titled: From Nano Defects to Mega Power: Heavily-Zirconium-Doped Trapped Field (Gd,Y)BaCuO Superconductor Tapes for High Power Wind Turbine Generators. Kavita said she wants to apply her research to MRIs.
• Josephine Yu, 17, Potomac, Maryland, won a $10,000 scholarship. Josephine was a 2016 Intel STS finalist. Her project is titled: Lattice and Continuum Models of Solitons and Vortices in Bilayer Graphene.