Fox Chapel Area senior nationally recognized for science research

Jan. 20—Arvind Seshan, a senior at Fox Chapel Area High School, has been building and programming robots since he was 6.

"My interest in science stems from getting an early start through robotics," said Seshan, 18.

Seshan, of Fox Chapel, has been named one of the top 300 scholars in the Regeneron Science Talent Search 2023, the nation's oldest and most prestigious math and science competition for high school seniors.

Only eight high school students in Pennsylvania received this distinction.

"I was super-excited for this award. I was very surprised and wasn't expecting it," Seshan said. "It's a very competitive program."

Each scholar receives $2,000 and another $2,000 is awarded to his or her high school. Fox Chapel will put the money toward STEM programming.

"The school has been really supportive of my endeavors in my science research," Seshan said.

The talent search is sponsored by the Society for Science. Almost 2,000 students from 627 American high schools and four countries competed.

"The enthusiasm and quality of projects from this year's participants were just outstanding," said Maya Ajmera, president and CEO of the Society for Science and publisher of Science News. "Each year, I'm tremendously impressed by the ingenuity that the students bring to the competition. Their hard work, creativity and perseverance should be applauded."

Fox Chapel Area High School science teacher Tom Moul said Seshan is the only student in the district to have completed all three physics courses offered at the high school by the end of his sophomore year.

In physics, Seshan is a member of what Moul has dubbed the "Double 5 Club" — students who have earned a 5 score on both AP physics courses offered at Fox Chapel.

"These are arguably the most difficult in the sense that both are calculus-based courses," Moul said.

Moul described Seshan as being obviously intelligent and always striving to learn.

"Two of Arvind's biggest strengths are his curiosity and diligence," Moul said.

A research paper is part of the requirements of the competition. Seshan's paper is titled "An Iterative Neural Network-Based Approach to Automated IFT-20 Sensory Neuron Identification in Caenorhabditis elegans."

Neurons are chemical signals and electrical impulses that deliver messages within the brain and nervous system. Seshan's research to automatically identify neuron activity across organisms is a step toward linking neuron activity in roundworms to their behavior, with roundworms being used as a model for understanding behavior in higher species.

"I've always been into science, especially robotics and computer science. I've been doing science fairs for many years now. It's definitely a lot of work but it's something that I enjoy, and I'm glad to be able to have the opportunity to do research," Seshan said.

Seshan was home-schooled until sixth grade, when he enrolled at Dorseyville Middle School.

He has won numerous robotics competitions and competed with his brother, Sanjay, at the FIRST Lego League World Festival Tournament when he was 11.

During his freshman year, Seshan was named in the top 300 of the Broadcom MASTERS competition, the country's leading science competition. In his sophomore and junior years, he was selected for the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, where he won a third-place Grand Award in the Systems Software category and several special awards.

Last summer, Seshan was selected as one of 92 global high school science researchers for a six-week summer program at MIT called the Research Science Institute.

"I was paired up with the physics department at Northeastern. It was different because I was exposed to this intersection of neuroscience and computer science — most of my research was in computer science. It was really cool to learn a bit more on the biology side and how we can merge the two different fields to come up with solutions."

He has been accepted through early action to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, but Seshan said he hasn't decided where he will attend college.

"There's a few schools I'm excited about, but I'm still waiting to hear from other schools. I think I will most likely major in computer science."

Seshan considers robotics his hobby, particularly using Legos. He even has served as a judge in a national Star Wars Lego competition.

"I work with Lego robots and I've built a lot of games and cool robots, and I take them to events and present them," he said.

His robotics travels have taken him to countries including India, Costa Rica, Denmark and Thailand.

Joyce Hanz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Joyce by email at jhanz@triblive.com or via Twitter .