RSI

RSI math faculty advisors Ankur Moitra and Davesh Maulik and head mentor Tanya Khovanova with RSI-2018 students

Since 1996, MIT has hosted a six-week summer program for high school students who are chosen for their superior achievement in math, science and engineering. Seventy-five high school juniors are selected by the Research Science Institute (RSI) based in Washington DC. RSI is part of the Center for Excellence in Education, a federally and privately funded nonprofit organization.

There are about 3,000 applicants to the program each year and of the 75 selected, about one third are from abroad and two thirds from the United States. About a dozen students are selected to work on research projects in mathematics. The MIT Mathematics Department Faculty Advisors for RSI, Professor Davesh Maulik and Professor Ankur Moitra, match each student with a mathematics graduate student mentor with compatible interests. The graduate student mentor devises a research project, often in consultation with an MIT faculty advisor. The graduate student then meets with each of his/her mentees each weekday during the RSI program. Dr. Slava Gerovitch is the program director.

Applying to RSI

The application materials and the process can be found online at CEE RSI application page .

Past Projects

At the end of the program, students make presentations to each other and to a panel of scientists who are usually former RSI participants themselves. See abstracts and papers from recent mathematics projects.

Recent Awards

RSI students often use their projects to participate in the Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS) and the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology or the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF). The mathematics group has been very well represented among the winners of these contests.

2017

Alan Peng - Semifinalist Siemens 2017 / Scholar Regeneron STS 2018
Mentor: Guangyi Yue

Michelle Shen - Semifinalist Siemens 2017 / Scholar Regeneron STS 2018
Mentor: Younhun Kim

Grace Tian - Semifinalist Siemens 2017 / Finalist Regeneron STS 2018
Mentor: Vishal Patil

David Wu - Semifinalist Siemens 2017 / Finalist Regeneron STS 2018 / Davidson Fellow 2018
Mentor: Robert Burklund

Karthik Yegnesh - Second Award in Math and AMS Honorable Mention ISEF 2018
Mentor: Augustus Lonergan

2016

Benjamin Chen - Semifinalist Siemens 2016 / Scholar Regeneron STS 2017
Mentor: Thao Do

Angela Deng - Scholar Regeneron STS 2017
Mentor: Guangyi Yue

Caleb He - Semifinalist Siemens 2016
Mentor: Ethan Jaffe

Dona-Maria Ivanova - Fourth Award in Math ISEF 2017
Mentor: Zhenkun Li

Nolan Reilly - Semifinalist Siemens 2016
Mentor: Mason Biamonte

Dhruv Rohatgi - Semifinalist Siemens 2016 / Scholar Regeneron STS 2017
Mentor: Chiheon Kim

2015

Amy Chou - Semifinalist Siemens 2015
Mentor: James Hirst

Brandon Epstein - Semifinalist Siemens 2015 / Semifinalist Intel STS 2016
Mentor: Hong Wang

Brian Gu - Semifinalist Siemens 2015
Mentor: Brandon Tran

Meena Jagadeesan - Semifinalist Siemens 2015
Mentor: Andrew Rzeznik

Abijith Krishnan - Semifinalist Siemens 2015
Mentor: Shan-Yuan Ho

Wilbur Li - Semifinalist Siemens 2015
Mentor: Cesar Cuenca

Sarvasva Raghuvanshi - Regional finalist Siemens 2015 / Outstanding Presentation at 2016 MAA Undergraduate Poster Session
Mentor: James Hirst

2014

Kavish Gandhi - Semifinalist Intel STS 2015
Mentor: Chiheon Kim

Petar Gaydarov - Second Prize Intel ISEF 2015
Mentor: Sam Hopkins, project by Alexander Postnikov

Noah Golowich - First Place Medal Intel STS 2015 / Davidson Fellow Laureate
Mentor: David Rolnick, project by Jacob Fox

Lev Kendrick - Semifinalist Intel STS 2015
Mentor: Gus Lonergan, project by Pavel Etingof

Shashwat Kishore - Third Place Medal Intel STS 2015
Mentor: Gus Lonergan, project by Pavel Etingof

Yelena Mandelshtam - Semifinalist Siemens 2014 / Finalist Intel STS 2015
Mentor: Miriam Farber, project by Alexander Postnikov

Peter Tian - First Prize Siemens 2014 / Semifinalist Intel STS 2015 / Davidson Fellow
Mentor: Jesse Geneson, project by Jesse Geneson

Jesse Zhang Semifinalist Siemens 2014 / Semifinalist Intel STS 2015
Mentors: David Rush, project by Vic Reiner

2013

Rumen Dangovski - Second Prize Intel ISEF 2014
Mentor: Nathan Harman, project by Pavel Etingof

Raj Raina - Semifinalist Siemens 2013 / Semifinalist Intel STS 2014
Mentor: Rik Sengupta, project by Jacob Fox

Sarah Shader - Semifinalist Siemens 2013 / Semifinalist Intel STS 2014 / Second Place AMS Menger Award at Intel ISEF 2014
Mentor: Gaku Liu, project by Alexander Postnikov

Jessica Shi - Semifinalist Siemens 2013 / Finalist Intel STS 2014 /
Outstanding Presentation at 2014 MAA Undergraduate Poster Session
Mentor: Francisco Unda, project by Jacob Fox

Bertrand Stone - Semifinalist Siemens 2013 / Semifinalist Intel STS 2014 / Honorable Mention for AMS Menger Award at Intel ISEF 2014
Mentor: Chiheon Kim, project by Pavel Etingof

2012

Matthew Babbitt - Semifinalist Intel STS 2013
Mentor: Jesse Geneson

Surya Bhupatiraju - Finalist Intel STS 2013
Mentor: Alex Arkhipov

Joshua Brakensiek - Outstanding Presentation at 2013 MAA Undergraduate Poster Session / Davidson Fellow 2013 / 2013 MathFest Pi Mu Epsilon Student Presentation Award
Semifinalist Siemens 2013 / Semifinalist Intel STS 2014
Mentor: Aaron Potechin

Katherine Cordwell - Finalist Intel STS 2013 / First Award Intel ISEF 2013
Mentor: Teng Fei

Kevin Garbe - Finalist Intel STS 2013
Mentor: Dorin Boger

Simanta Gautam - Semifinalist Siemens 2012 / Second Award Intel ISEF 2013
Mentor: Dmitry Vaintrob

Gil Goldshlager - Semifinalist Siemens 2012 / Semifinalist Intel STS 2013
Mentor: Aaron Potechin

Jacob McNamara - Semifinalist Siemens 2012 / Davidson Fellow Honorable Mention 2013
Mentor: Dmitry Vaintrob

Charles Pasternak - Semifinalist Siemens 2012
Mentor: Matt Coudron

Lilly Shen - Semifinalist Siemens 2012 / Semifinalist Intel STS 2013
Mentor: Jesse Geneson

Kathleen Zhou - Semifinalist Intel STS 2013
Mentor: Teng Fei

2011

Rebecca Chen - Semifinalist Intel STS 2012
Regional Semifinalist Siemens Competition 2011
Mentor: Wenzhe Wei

Sitan Chen - 3rd Prize ($40K) Siemens Competition 2011
2012 Davidson Fellow Laureate ($10K)
Finalist Intel STS 2012
Mentor: Jesse Geneson

Sidharth Dhawan - Semifinalist Intel STS 2012
Mentor: Zachary Abel

Eric Mannes - Semifinalist Intel STS 2012
Mentor: Aaron Potechin

Matthew Rauen - Semifinalist Intel STS 2012
Mentor: Jesse Geneson

Adam H. Su - Semifinalist Intel STS 2012
Regional Semifinalist Siemens Competition 2011
Mentor: Benjamin Iriarte

2010

Wenyu Cao - Finalist Intel STS 2011
Mentor: Rosalie Beranger-Rioux

Randy Jia - Finalist Siemens Competition 2010
Mentor: John Lesieutre

2009

Tian-yi (Damien) Jiang - Regional Finalist Siemens Competition 2009
Mentor: Yan Zhang

Akhil Mathew - 3rd Prize ($50K) Intel STS 2010
Project suggested by Pavel Etingof

Arjun Puranik - Regional Finalist Siemens Competition 2009
Mentor: Martina Balagovic; Project suggested by Pavel Etingof

Dennis Tseng - Regional Finalist Siemens Competition 2009
Mentor: Nan Li

Lynnelle Ye - 2nd Prize ($50K) Siemens Competition 2009 and 4th Prize ($40K) Intel STS 2010
Mentor: Tirasan Khandhawit; Supervisor Tanya Khovanova

2008

Noah Arbesfeld - 6th Place ($25K) Intel STS 2009
Mentor: David Jordan; Project suggested by Pavel Etingof

Eric Larson - 1st Place ($100K) Intel STS 2009 and 2nd Place ($50K) Siemens Competition 2008
Mentor: David Jordan; Project suggested by Pavel Etingof

Max Rabinovich - Finalist Intel STS 2009
Mentor: Emmanuel Stoica; Project suggested by Pavel Etingof and supervised by David Jerison

Adam Sealfron - Finalist Intel STS 2009
Mentor: Victor Chen

2007

Benjamin Dozier - Finalist Intel STS 2008
Mentor: Cameron Freer

Qiaochu Yuan - Finalist Intel STS 2008
Mentor: Ryan Reich

2006

Harrison Chen - Regional Finalist Siemens Competition 2006
Mentor: Zuoqin Wang

Sana Raoof - 1st Place (three-way tie; 1/3 of $175K) Intel ISEF 2008
Mentor: David Jordan

Dmitry Vaintrob - 1st Place ($100K) Siemens Competition 2006 and 3rd Place ($50K) Intel STS 2007
Mentor: Aaron Tievsky; Project suggested by Pavel Etingof

2005

Kimberly Scott - 10th Place ($20K) Intel STS 2006

Yi Sun - 2nd Place ($75K) Intel STS 2006

2002

Steven Byrnes - 1st Prize ($100K) Siemens Westinghouse 2002-2003
Mentor: Edward Early

1997

Christopher Mihelich - 1st Prize ($40K) Westinghouse STS 1998
Mentor: Alexander Soloviev; Project suggested by Sergey Fomin

Travis Schedler - 5th Prize ($15K) Westinghouse STS 1998
Mentor: Alexander Soloviev; Project suggested by Pavel Etingof