Hobbies
Reading science fiction, science fact, and recreational math books; doing math problems; playing the tuba; volunteering for the Dennis Puleston Osprey Cam

Clubs
Mathletes, Shoreham-Wading River High School Band, Shoreham-Wading River Community Band, Suffolk County Lone Star Math Team, Suffolk County All Star Math Team

Experience
Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament (HMMT) 2005, tied for 7th place individually and 5th place in combinatorics; Mandelbrot Competition 2004-2005, second tier; New York State Mathematics League (NYSML) Competition 2004, tied for 3rd place in 2005; American Regions Math League (ARML) 2004; SCMTA Senior High Math League, 2nd place 2004, tied 1st place 2005; Suffolk County Math Tournament, tied for 1st place 2004, tied for 2nd place 2003 and 2005

Biography
I don't know how I became interested in math and science. As far back as I can remember I have always been interested in them. I used to think about math when I was three; I was also mesmerized by mazes. I started reading books on math and science at a young age, and have continued reading them ever since. An early favorite was Anno's Math Games. For a while in second grade, I became interested in naming organic molecules. I have taken most of my math courses in the normal sequence, but have done math on my own outside of class. In seventh grade, I scored a 690 on the math portion of the SAT, even though I had not yet started algebra in school. Outside of my schoolwork, I keep notebooks where I work on math problems of my own devising. Most of these problems are extensions of ideas I have seen somewhere. For example, I found a way to extend Pascal's triangle into higher dimensions. In previous years, I have won many awards for my math and science performance at the local and county levels. This year, however, I have won several awards at higher levels. I tied for seventh place in the Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament. I also tied for third place in the New York State Mathematics League Competition. I still enjoy reading math and science books. I enjoyed, for example, Robert B. Banks’s books on applied mathematics because they demonstrated how math is used for modeling things in the real world. I also enjoyed Brian Greene’s books because they explained many complex and interesting ideas from physics in ways that are easy to follow and understand. Although I enjoy math and science, I have many other interests. I have played the tuba since fourth grade. I enjoy playing and now play both in my school band and the Shoreham-Wading River Community Band. I have volunteered for the Dennis Puleston Osprey Fund for three years now. With this group, I have helped to set up a streaming webcam on an osprey nest and have worked on the associated computer servers. I am very excited to join the U.S. Physics Team. Since I had a strong interest in physics, when I learned about the U.S. Physics Team I wanted to take the test. I was concerned that the exam would cover material I had not yet covered in my physics course, but I still took the test. I plan to major in physics in college, continuing to use and expand my knowledge of the subject