News
The Sciences at GA: Jonah Kallenbach '13 Named Third in the World in Mathematics
Posted July 3, 2012
Jonah Kallenbach '13 placed third in the world in Mathematics at the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for his project Novel Graph Theory Algorithms for Protein Structure Predication and Design. Last year, Kallenbach won third in the world in Computer Science at the International Fair, also known as the ‘Olympics of Science Fairs.’
“I was very satisfied with how I did,” said Kallenbach, who looked at the way proteins can form and the shape of proteins in 3-D space. “Math is always a very competitive category, and, particularly this year, the quality of projects was ridiculously high. I spoke with a physics judge who said that math was hands down the toughest category this year. I was incredibly honored to be presented with the distinction once again.”
For his efforts this year, Kallenbach was awarded a $60,000 scholarship to Florida Institute of Technology and had more than a dozen summer internship offers, but decided to participate in the prestigious Research Science Institute program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) instead.
Kallenbach’s third place finish put an exclamation point on a successful year for the rising senior and GA’s science research class as a whole. In April, Kallenbach won a gold medal in Mathematics at the Delaware Valley Science Fair and was just one of three gold medalists from his grade to be selected to compete at Internationals where he was joined by fellow GA gold medalists Rahul Kumar '12 (Physics) and Justin Wong '15 (Medicine and Health). GA students won seven gold medals and a combined $428,000 in scholarships at the tri-state contest, which features, the best first and second place winners from 12 different regional fairs from New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania.
Kallenbach won $224,000 in scholarships at the Delaware Valley Fair and also took home the U.S. Navy/Marine Corps Award, Kean University Award, U.S. Army Award, and Mu Alpha Theta, Most Challenging, Thorough, and Creative Investigation of Problem Involving Modern Mathematics Award.
