Feb. 23, 2008
Albuquerque Journal
N.M. Teen's Math Project Wins Spot in National Intel Competition
By Polly Summar, Journal Staff WriterLOS ALAMOS— Ben Dozier, 18, sits in his living room eating a piece of organic pumpkin pie his brother, Lupe, has just made and tries to explain the project that won him a slot as one of 40 national finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search 2008.
Bit strings? Random bit strings?
He nods, realizing the concept is difficult, and hands a written explanation to a reporter: "I studied a mathematical structure called a bit string. A bit is a single digit that takes the value 0 or 1. A bit string is just a sequence of bits. Given a bit string, it is natural to ask how complex the bit string is."
Natural?
Maybe for a kid who's been obsessed with numbers since he was 3 years old and computed the number of horses on the poster in his bedroom.
But back to his project: Dozier's research focused on random bit strings, which he called "an interesting variant of the normal bit string in which the values of the bits (whether they are 0 or 1) are chosen randomly."
Dozier explored how the complexity of random bit strings grows as the length of the bit string gets larger and larger, approaching infinity.
The project won Dozier $5,000 in scholarship money and a new laptop as a finalist in the prestigious Intel competition, with chances for more scholarships from a $1.25 million pool.
This contest is considered a kind of junior Nobel Prize.
Finalists head to Washington, D.C., on March 6 for a weeklong judging process. The winner will be announced March 11.
The lanky Los Alamos High School senior has already been accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He's waiting to hear from Harvard and Princeton before making a decision.
Last summer, he spent six weeks at the Research Science Institute at MIT, where he worked on his Intel project. The RSI program included 50 high school juniors from across the United States and 25 international students.
"You pick a research project with a graduate student," Dozier said, explaining that he was matched with a graduate student from Harvard, Cameron Freer. In the fall, Freer will be a postdoctoral researcher and instructor at MIT.
"Ben came to RSI not having undertaken mathematical research before," Freer said in an e-mail, "but he very quickly acclimated to a high level of mathematical sophistication and abstraction."
Dozier is circumspect about his math abilities.
"I've certainly met people I've thought were inherently better at math or had a more natural aptitude," said Dozier, who's president of the Los Alamos High math club and plays varsity tennis.
"I think I'm kind of gifted in math, but I think I work harder than a lot of people. Most people don't study books or do problems outside of school."
Dozier seems to come by his braininess naturally. His parents, Esther Kovari and Miguel Dozier, met when they were both attending the Cambridge University in England, where Kovari had grown up.
Miguel Dozier has roots at Santa Clara Pueblo, where he is now a doctor at the health clinic. Kovari is a social studies teacher at the McCurdy School in Española.
The couple divorced when Ben was about 5, and he has lived in a joint-custody capacity since then, staying one week with his mother in Los Alamos, the next with his father at Santa Clara. While some youngsters might say going back and forth between two households made it difficult for them to do well in school, Dozier shrugs it off.
"For me, it's kind of nice," he said. "If I get tired of my mom, it's time to go to my dad's."
Dozier tutors one afternoon a week at Santa Clara Pueblo Community Library. "He's strong in math and science, and that's what the kids need," said Teresa Naranjo, director of the library.
As he looks to his future, Dozier's not sure what he wants to do beyond majoring in math.
"A lot of people go to Wall Street from there and work in hedge funds ... but the question is, 'Are you doing any good in the world?' In general, I think they're making rich people richer."