Jonathan Tidor and Rohil Prasad, juniors at Lexington High School in Lexington, MA, will share a $20,000 scholarship for their mathematics project entitled, New Results in Staged Self-Assembly of Wang Tiles. They came in 5th at the 2012 National Siemens Math, Science and Technology Competition. 

“The team explored self-assembly, the spontaneous assembly of complex structures from a collection of basic shapes,” said competition judge Dr. Cristina Caputo, Lecturer, Department of Mathematics, The University of Texas at Austin when they won the regionals.  “They found optimal ways to create systems of particles that assemble themselves into a wide variety of structures.  Their results could have real-world applications in nanotechnology and DNA computing.  This team’s project incorporates math, science and technology, and we are happy to send them to the Nationals.”

Mr. Tidor is captain of the math team and Science Bowl team at his high school.  Outside of academics, he enjoys playing the piano.  He first became interested in math because of his brother.  â€œIn elementary school I couldn't wait to be older so that I could do all the cool math that he was doing,” he said.   Mr. Tidor expects to pursue a career related to mathematics or physics.

Mr. Prasad is a member of the Science Bowl team and volunteers with his middle school’s math team.  He is also a black belt in Chung Do Kwan Tae Kwon Do.   Mr. Prasad aspires to work in a mathematics-related field.  “I enjoy the intense problem solving aspects of it, in addition to how beautiful many things are in mathematics,” he said.

|