Fifteen Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) students have been named scholars in the 2017 Regeneron Science Talent Search, one of the most prestigious high school science competitions in the nation.

The MCPS scholars are from five MCPS high schools—Montgomery Blair, Clarksburg, Poolesville, Richard Montgomery and Walt Whitman.

The Regeneron Science Talent Search is administered by the Society for Science & the Public, a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to public engagement in scientific research and education. There are 300 scholars nationwide, who were chosen from a pool of more than 1,700 entries. MCPS has been a national leader in this competition for many years and routinely is one of the school districts with the most semifinalists. In 2015, Michael Winer of Montgomery Blair High School won the First Place Medal of Distinction for Innovation in the competition and received a $150,000 award.

The research projects entered by MCPS students cover a broad range of scientific and math topics. Each of the scholars will receive a $2,000 award for his or her outstanding research. Additionally, to recognize excellence in teaching and school support, schools will receive an award of $2,000 for each semifinalist, which is to be used to further excellence in science, math and engineering education.

Forty national finalists will be chosen on January 24. They will compete March 9–15 in Washington, D.C., for more than $1 million in awards.

The MCPS scholars in the 2017 Regeneron Science Talent Search are:

Montgomery Blair High School
Sambuddha Chattopadhay
Ethan Chen
Richard Chen
Rohan Dalvi
Dawson Do
Samuel Ehrenstein
Raymond Guo
Garret Kern
Juliana Lu-Yang

Clarksburg High School
Anurudh Ganesan

Poolesville High School
Kathleen Cho
Ishan Mundra
Richard Wang

Richard Montgomery High School
Frederick Xu

Walt Whitman High School
David Rekhtman

Read the national release