Eliana Bukai, Reporter
@EBukaiCourant
This past fall, seniors Anna Thérѐse Mehra and Theodore Nelson were selected as top 300 scholars from a pool of nearly 2000 accepted entries in the nationwide Regeneron Science Talent Search. For Theo, the possibility of discovering something new is even more important than the recognition.
The Regeneron Science Talent Search is a science research competition that “recognizes and empowers our nation’s most promising young scientists who are developing ideas that could solve society’s most urgent challenges” according to its website, and “focuses on identifying, inspiring, and engaging the most promising scientists among the nations high school seniors.”
“I don’t usually participate in a lot of these competitions and science awards. It’s never really been a focus of mine to get awards, but I was encouraged by a lot of people to just send in an application and see how it goes,” Theo said. “I think the fact that the work has been recognized helps to validate there is something there.”
The majority of Theo’s research was done at Yale University this past summer. “It wasn’t so much Regeneron as it was Yale Medical School that really invested in me and gave me the opportunity,” Theo said.
Theo credits Science Research Teacher Jessica Zych for helping him to attain a variety of scientific opportunities over the years. “Ms. Zych was always very supportive and she encouraged me to keep moving forwards. She helped me to find outlets for research even when I didn’t have the opportunity to go into the lab.” he said.
Ms. Zych, however, credits Theo’s success to his independence and his passion for scientific research. “When looking for students to recommend for science programs, I look for students who are doing it because they love it, they’re passionate about it, and because it’s who they are, not students who are just checking a box for college,” Ms. Zych said. “I’m looking for people who are truly considering this as a path for life. And in that regard, Theo checked all the boxes.”
Although Theo’s research began only this past summer, he began working toward it a long time ago. “It’s sort of been a long process of scientific research, independent study, mentoring, applying one year for internships, not getting one, but persevering, applying again, and getting one at Yale that allowed him to accumulate enough research to apply to Regeneron,” Ms. Zych said.
Theo is optimistic that his work might have important future implications.
“In terms of my Regeneron work with computational bioinformatics, the long term hope is that there’s an approach there,” Theo said. “It’s going to be, hopefully, something that is going to be more fleshed out and formalized. People are going to be able to compare that cell data, transcriptomic data, epigenetic data, on a much larger scale.”
“I think [Regeneron] was a life moment, not just an ‘I learned something from a teacher’ moment,” Ms. Zych said.
