Ward Melville High School students Bradley Kelton and Katherine Liang have been named as two of the top 300 scholars in the 2024 Regeneron Science Talent Search. The Science Talent Search is the nation’s most prestigious science research competition for high school students.

Scholars are chosen based on their outstanding research and innovation, leadership skills, community involvement and exceptional promise in the STEM fields. This year, they were selected from a pool of 2,162 applicants – the highest number of entrants since 1969.

Kelton’s research project, “Geochronologic and Dynamic Constraints on the Topographic Evolution and Critical Mineral Deposits of the Southwestern United States,” was completed at Stony Brook University. He studied the history of the Earth to better understand markers that may assist in the location of critical mineral deposits that are limited in supply, yet vital components of an array of technologies supporting the transition to green energy sources. Kelton created predictive models to map these critical mineral deposits. This work may contribute to independence in the rare earths market and help reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Liang completed her computer science project, “Differentially Private Deep Learning in Biomedical Research,” at Brookhaven National Labs, training artificial intelligence to streamline important sharing of healthcare records without compromising privacy. Liang devised a way that training images can be shared to improve AI assisted scanning without revealing sensitive information about the patients from whom the images were derived. This project could revolutionize the methods by which doctors more accurately make diagnoses.

The 300 scholars were awarded $2,000 each. 40 finalists will be announced on Jan. 24 and will compete for more than $1.8 million in awards during a weeklong competition in Washington, D.C. this March.

Date Added: 1/10/2024