By: Arlene Hinkemeyer
"I was extremely surprised," Tharani said of his accomplishment. "I wasn't expecting it."
Tharani will receive $1,000 from the Intel Corporation in recognition of his achievement, and South High will also receive $1,000 to enhance its science and mathematics programs.
"We will put the funds back into the science research program," said Principal Dr. Stephen Lando. "We are very proud of Akash, who is not only a research student, but also vice president of the senior class, a member of our school's shared-decision-making team, captain of the Mathletes, and M.C. of the recent senior class prom fashion show."
This year's Intel semifinalists were selected from 1,600 entrants in 47 states. Their research projects cover all areas of science, including chemistry, physics, biology, math, engineering and the social sciences. More than 100 top scientists in a variety of fields judge the entries and evaluate each student's research ability, scientific originality and creative thinking.
Forty finalists will be announced Jan. 26, and invited to Washington, D.C., to compete for college scholarships totaling more than $500,000.
A good night's sleep
Tharani's project is titled, "The Effect of Sleep on the Encoding and Consolidation Phases of Declarative and Procedural Memory." Tharani, who hopes to become a college professor of psychology or math, developed his methodology via e-mail with mentor Dr. Matthew Walker of the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
"I chose the topic because of its relevance to students," said Tharani. "My research was designed to assess if negative sleep patterns would affect young adolescents' ability to learn information and skills."
Using 20 South High juniors as his subjects, he tested a group that got plenty of sleep (the control group) and a sleep-deprived group for their ability to type various combinations, which involves the use of procedural memory, and to recall learned words, which involves declarative memory. "The sleep-deprived group was negatively affected in their ability to recall learned words, and had an increase in the error rate of the typing task," Tharani explained, "suggesting that sleep played an important role in the initial process of learning, solidifying, and recalling memories in both declarative and procedural memory."
Tharani's project advisors at South were Jeanette Azzaretto, for the first two years of the district's three-year program, and Jeffrey Hsi, for the current school year.
Entering the contest requires the submission of a maximum 20-page research paper as well as a 13-page application form with detailed questions and essays on students' academic records, interests and families, their scientific inventiveness and work habits, the research process, and recommendations from their mentors and school advisors.
"Akash is an incredibly organized, detail-oriented and self-motivated student who, as senior class vice president, also plays a major role in the school in organizing class events," said Azzaretto, who serves as senior class advisor.
"His methodology on the project was very thorough," said science advisor Hsi. "He did an in-depth analysis of the data. We hope Akash can be a shining example for the future research students that follow."
South High has had three previous Intel semifinalists: Shanikki Ferguson, an honoree in 2001, who worked under Azzaretto, and Ed Gollin and Scott Markowitz, semifinalists in 1987 and 1983, respectively (when the contest was sponsored by Westinghouse), who worked under now-retired science teacher Robert Sympson.
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