Congratulations, Hersh

One of our son's buddies got some headlines in the AZ Republic today, so I had to pass it on. Here's the beginning of the article:

Gilbert High senior Hersh Goel plans to major in medical research, so to him it seems logical he would develop a model of a cancer cell.

Goel's proposal may seem audacious, given cancer has vexed scientists for decades, but not to one of Gilbert's graduating elite.

They're asked to shoot for the scientific stars.

Goel, along with his partners Michael Fan and Corina Oprescu, will present their project at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Indianapolis, Sunday through May 13. Twenty-one Arizona high school students were chosen to participate.

Read the rest of the article for a more complete explanation of this honor; but Hersh is the young man in white surrounded by his behemoth buddies:


He is a great kid; I don't know his current ranking in his class, but it's in the top one percent, I think. He has garnered all sorts of honors and scholarships. The funny thing is that he hangs out with these football players; he will be at our house playing XBox and they will be merciless in their comments on his XBox skills, but he just smiles and doesn't respond. I asked him once why he put up with it, and he just shrugged and smiled again. Personally, I think it's his way of relaxing; after all, the reason he isn't so skilled at XBox has everything to do with how much time he spends studying and nothing to do with his coordination. To prove my point, just listen to the name of his research project:

A Hybrid Reaction-Diffusion Cellular Automata Model of Glioblastoma.

Well done, Hersh; good luck.