April 6, 2001 UNT Inhouse publication: TAMS student places ninth in Intel Science Talent Search

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TAMS student places ninth in Intel Science Talent Search

Adam Horch, a Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science student, placed ninth out of 40 finalists in the 2001 Intel Science Talent Search. He received a $20,000 scholarship — bringing his total Intel scholarship award winnings to $26,000 .

Formerly the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, the Intel program is the nation's premier recognition for high school student research in science, mathematics and engineering. Past honorees of the 60-year-old program later became recipients of Nobel Prizes, National Medals of Science, MacArthur Foundation Fellowships and other prestigious science and math awards. This year's winners were announced at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., March 12.

Horch was first selected as one of 300 semifinalists for this year's Science Talent Search, chosen from more than 1,500 applicants. He was one of 10 semifinalists from Texas and one of five from TAMS, a UNT program that allows talented high school students to complete their first two years of college while earning a high school diploma.

Since 1993, 20 TAMS students have been named semifinalists in the Westinghouse/Intel Science Talent Search. Six of those students were also named finalists. Horch received the second-highest Intel ranking ever among the finalists from TAMS. In 1997, Dev Kumar from Dallas placed sixth in the competition.

Horch was one of two finalists from Texas in this year's competition, and he was the only finalist from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He received a $5,000 scholarship for being named afinalist and a $1,000 scholarship for being named a semifinalist.

He was honored for his research on growing montmorillonite on metallic thin films. Montmorillonite, a material combining ceramic minerals with metals, is 20 percent harder than stainless steel, but not quite as dense, he says.

"Montmorillonite is very inexpensive and can be made very rapidly. It can be used by any industry looking for a hard metal to coat the surface of something. It could be used in artificial joints, in industrial cutting tools and in automobile parts," Horch says.

He conducted his research beginning in January 2000 in the laboratory of Teresa Golden, UNT assistant professor of chemistry.

"During my first year at TAMS, I scoped out professors who were willing to take me on as a research assistant, and Dr. Golden let me into her laboratory," he says. "I would really like to thank TAMS for giving its students opportunities to do research —we have all of the lab facilities at our fingertips. It was an honor to work side by side with graduate students."

Horch attended Trinity Valley High School in Fort Worth before entering TAMS in August 1999. He is president and founder of the TAMS Robotics Club and a member of the Junior Engineering Technical Society science club and the Academy Ambassadors. He has volunteered at a hospital and at the Fort Worth Zoo aquarium, where he builds filters and special parts for the tanks out of scrap metal. Horch has also been named to the TAMS Director's 4.0 Honor Roll for three semesters.

After graduating from TAMS in May, Horch plans to attend Duke, Rice, Johns

Hopkins, Vanderbilt or Washington University to finish his bachelor's degree, majoring in biomedical and chemical engineering. He plans to eventually earn a doctoral degree in biomedical engineering and become a researcher.

"My dream job would be to have my own biomedical research firm," he says.