Monday December 5th, Kiran R. Pendri ’06 placed second overall in the prestigious national Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science & Technology. Pendri’s project, Macrocyclization Using Ring-Closing Olefin Metathesis: Synthesis of a 13-Member Dithiolactone was selected from an initial pool of 1,684 entries and earned the Choate student $50,000.

“It’s a high honor to be given this award by the Siemens Foundation,” said Pendri, “and it’s a tribute to my family, friends and teachers, who loyally supported me.”

The competition was held last weekend in New York City. Pendri and five other finalists participated in the individual competition while six teams of two or three members participated in a separate contest. The finalists were selected from a total of thirty regional finalists from five regions that spread the country. Pendri was selected as the finalist from New England after the regional competition at MIT on 12 November.

“The competition itself was excellent. I had a chance to meet all kinds of people, including several CEO’s at [the Siemens competition], as well as Mr. and Mrs. von Siemens who gave me the giant check in person,” said Pendri (Peter von Siemens is the great-great-grandson of Werner von Siemens, the founder of the company, now the world’s twentieth largest).

The project itself involved the synthesis of a new molecule using olefin metathesis, a process for the development of which Robert H. Grubbs of Caltech, Richard R Schrock of MIT, and Yves Chauvin of Institut Français du Pétrole won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry just two months ago.

“It’s my hope that my research in organic synthesis will contribute to future pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturing developments,” said Pendri.

Pendri performed his independent research this summer in the laboratory of Erik J. Sorensen, under the guidance of the professor and Dr. Brian Goess, a post-doctoral student studying in Sorensen’s lab at Princeton University.

When asked about the amount of time he spent in the lab, Pendri says he spent about 14 hours of day, 6 days a week, for 3 months right up until the very day before senior registration at Choate working on the project.

“Working with my brilliant mentors, Prof. Erik Sorenson and Dr. Brian Goess, the time just seemed to fly by.” said Pendri.
Choate’s Science Department will receive $2,000 dollars for Pendri’s work. Pendri is quick to express his thanks to the school and is glad to bring significant positive publicity to Choate.
Pendri indicates that his days in high school-level national competitions are far from over. However, when asked about his plans for the future, he refused to comment on the grounds of being a “private citizen”.

Videos of all the national finalists’ presentations, including Pendri’s, and of the subsequent press conference announcing the winners are available for public viewing at: www.siemens-foundation.org.