Twenty young people have been named as 2014 Davidson Fellows. The program offers scholarship from $10,000 to $50,000 college scholarships to students 18 or younger, who have "created significant projects that have the potential to benefit society in the fields of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, literature, philosophy, music, and outside the box."
One of the winners is 16-year-old Romi Yount of San Francisco. She received a $10,000 scholarship for her project, “Music without Borders: Transcending Cultural and Temporal Boundaries through Guzheng Performance.” Her portfolio is a synthesis of 10 years of guzheng (Chinese string instrument) study, and consists of musical pieces composed throughout China’s history, from the Warring States period to the Cultural Revolution and beyond, in addition to an improvisation. Through her work she hopes to help excavate and preserve sounds whose origins lie deep in the past and far away from the Western music world; it aims to be a form of artistic archeology, a kind of cultural conservation.
Romi will begin her senior year at Lowell High School in the fall. Her brother, Reylon, was awarded a Davidson Fellows Scholarship in 2011. The 2014 Davidson Fellows will be honored at a reception in Washington, D.C., this Friday.
Founded by Bob and Jan Davidson in 1999, the Davidson Institute for Talent Development recognizes, nurtures and supports profoundly intelligent young people, and provides opportunities for them to develop their talents to make a positive difference.
Among 2014 winners of $50,000 from California:
Sara Kornfeld Simpson, 17, San Diego, "Neuronal Nonlinear Dynamics: From an Optical Illusion to Parkinson’s Disease"; Ray Ushikubo, 13, Riverside, Calif., "Circle of Life in Music"; Alice Zhai, 16, La Canada, Calif., "Dependency of U.S. Hurricane Loss on Maximum Wind Speed and Storm Size."
$25,000 scholarships went to Eric Chen, 18, San Diego, "Computer-Aided Discovery of Novel Anti-Flu Drug Candidates to Fight Pandemics"; Emily Wang, 18, Palo Alto, Calif., "Illuminating Disease Pathways: Developing Bright Fluorescent Proteins to Improve FRET Biosensing"