Student Wins USD250k Prize for Blight Potato Solution
New York student Benjamin Firester has won one of the United States’ top young science prizes for his research on the devastating microorganism which caused the Irish Potato Famine, devising a computer model that could prevent it causing billions of dollars in lost crops every year.
The 18-year-old senior at HunterCollegeHigh School beat 1,800 students in the race to the first prize at the Regeneron Science Talent Search, which counts 13 Nobel Prize-winners among its alumni. He also joins his older sister Kalia, who finished a runner-up in 2015.
Firester’s project, titled “Modeling the Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Phytophthora infestans on a Regional Scale,” mapped disease data and weather patterns to predict where spores that cause potato late blight would spread to next. The study involved Firester using data from Israeli farmers and weather reports of the region, factoring in humidity levels and wind direction.
“Benjy’s project melds several different STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields” said Sudarshan Chawathe, chair of the judging panel, according to cnn.com. “His use of existing data to make predictions is innovative, and we are impressed by Benjy’s long-term commitment to his research.”
“The Regeneron Science Talent Search competitors are some of our country’s very best young scientists,” said George D. Yancopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., Founding Scientist, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Regeneron, and a Science Talent Search winner himself in 1976. “We’re so excited to support the winners for their remarkable accomplishments and are thrilled to see once again the amazing thinking that comes from a group of passionate, skilled young people bringing fresh perspectives to significant global problems. Being a winner in what was then the Westinghouse Science Talent Search changed my life and inspired me to devote my life to science. We hope the same for this year’s competitors, and that people of all ages will look to them as role models and be similarly inspired to change the world through science.”
The Regeneron Science Talent Search, founded and produced by Society for Science & the Public since 1942, is the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors. Each year, approximately 1,800 student entrants submit original research in critically important scientific fields of study and are judged by leading experts in their fields. Unique among high school competitions in the U.S. and globally, the Regeneron Science Talent Search focuses on identifying, inspiring and engaging the nation’s most promising young scientists who are creating the ideas that could solve society’s most urgent challenges.
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