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Mostly Cloudy Senior’s math project adds up to success
With a big win at science fair, teen earns trip to international competition
In many ways, Calhoun High School senior Elise Meade is your typical teen. The 17-year-old played varsity soccer last fall. She now competes on the varsity badminton team and plays the clarinet in Calhoun’s wind ensemble. On weekends, she referees youth soccer games.
In her spare time, though, Meade develops her own mathematical formulas to test the efficacy of 150-year-old equations like the Gompertz curve, which is used to plot growth over time.
Meade spent last summer at Hofstra University, plugging data into computers and writing her own equations to compare the Gompertz curve with what mathematicians call the logistic function to determine which is best suited for tracking tumor growth in breast-cancer patients. Dr. Raymond Greenwell, a Hofstra University mathematics professor, served as her mentor.
After two months of intense work, Meade determined that the logistic function was the better of the two. For her effort, she was recently awarded first place in the Long Island Science and Engineering Fair’s Mathematical Sciences division, earning her a trip to the Los Angeles Convention Center for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair May 6 to 13. In California she will join Kennedy High School’s Greg Manis and Mepham’s Bilal Siddiqui, whom the Herald profiled in recent weeks.
Scientists began using the Gompertz equation to plot cancer tumor growth in the 1960s. But as far as Meade could tell, no one had checked whether it provided the most accurate results. Meade set out to do just that, detailing the results of her study on a poster board and in an 18-page thesis that wowed LISEF judges.
Kim Lascarides, one of Calhoun’s three science research advisers, said, “Teachers are expected to inspire students, but once in a while a student comes along who inspires the teacher. Elise is that kind of student. In addition to her amazing mathematical mind, Elise has grace, beauty and humility. She’s been waiting patiently for her turn to shine, and I’m happy that the chance has finally come.”
