Katherine Rose Banks

NEW YORK

Katherine Rose Banks, 17, of Brooklyn, submitted a mathematics project to the Intel Science Talent Search on problems in combinatorial geometry. A lattice polygon in the plane is a polygon each of whose vertices has integer coordinates; such points are called lattice points. Katie gave a proof of a conjecture of S. Rabinowitz, that a convex lattice polygon with nine vertices cannot have exactly eight or nine interior lattice points. Katie attends Stuyvesant High School in New York and has perfect SAT scores. Diagnosed at a young age with a neurological condition, she began quizzing doctors about equipment used for her treatments, which led to an informal education of neuroscience. This developed into collaborations with her surgeon on algorithm coding for simulation software used in craniofacial surgery. As a member of the F.I.R.S.T. Robotics team, she created an on-the-fly program during a competition that earned her team the top programming award. Katie enjoys acting and technical theater, as well as rocketry, ham radio, photography and playing cricket. The daughter of Paul and Carrie Banks, Katie hopes to teach math following her studies at MIT or Cornell.