More than a dozen local teens, including three from Gunn High School, are among 300 students from across the country named as semifinalists in the 2013 Intel Science Talent Search.

The students were selected from 1,700 contest entries based on their projects in biochemistry, materials science, physics, mathematics, engineering, behavioral science, medicine or health.

Among the semifinalists are Helen Jiang, Laura Tung and George Yu from Gunn; Victoria Lee Dean from Castilleja School; Christopher Sauer from Menlo School; Jerry Liu from Los Altos High School; Nikhil Buduma and Debnil Sur from Bellarmine College Preparatory School and six students from Harker School, including Paulomi Bhattacharya, Deniz Celik, Jenny Chen, Andrew Luo, Payal Modi and Ashvin Swaminathan. Another semifinalist, Sahana Vasudevan, was listed as from the Gnyanam Academy of Palo Alto.

Semifinalists also came from Saratoga High School, Lynbrook High School and other Bay Area schools.

Forty of the 300 semifinalists will be named next week to present their projects in Washington, D.C. in March for a crack at $630,000 in awards provided by the Intel Foundation. Each finalist will receive at least $7,500. The top award is $100,000.

"The 300 Intel Science Talent Search 2013 semifinalists have distinguished themselves as the nation's top young scientists dedicated to independent, hands-on research in the science, technology engineering and math fields," said Elizabeth Marincola, president of Society for Science & the Public.

The Society for Science & the Public posted a complete listing of semifinalists and their projects.

— Chris Kenrick

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