61st Annual STS (2001–2002)
Finalists
Nikita Rozenblyum

NEW YORK
Nikita Rozenblyum, 17, of Brooklyn, entered the Intel Science Talent Search with a mathematics project, a study of topology and knot theory. Mathematically speaking, a knot can be described as a topological shape embedded in a space. Nikita studied the family of knots that are nullhomotopic in three-dimensional real projective space. This family includes all knots found inside the sphere. He calculates several important invariants, and he also finds examples of these knots that cannot be embedded in a sphere. Nikita, who likes discovering new things, says his interest in topology grew from his first graduate level math class, which he took while a high school sophomore. At Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, Nikita participates on the math team and works on school publications. He hopes to pursue his study of mathematics in college in preparation for a career as a research scientist. A native of Belarus in the former Soviet Union, he reads Russian and Spanish fluently and counts among his hobbies solving challenging problems, computer programming and ping pong. He is the son of Dr. Alexander Rozenblyum and Margaret Levin.