Hunter Students Rise to the Challenge

Hunter College junior Viacheslav Manichev has won the Grand Prize in this year’s CUNY Nobel Science Challenge, earning a cash award of $3,000. Joining Manichev were five other Hunter students who accounted for half of the competition’s total prize winners. 

The CUNY Nobel Science Challenge is the brainchild of CUNY Vice Chancellor for Research Gillian Small to challenge CUNY students to contribute to science literacy in New York City. Students were asked to submit essays describing the scientific concepts behind the work of Nobel Prize winners in physiology or medicine, chemistry, economics, or physics, and to address the present and future significance of the research. 

“This was one of the most difficult essays I’ve ever had to write,” explained Manichev, a chemistry major and mathematics minor, adding that his grand prize victory was in fact, “a grand surprise.” 

Manichev’s essay was a look into Dr. Dan Shechtman’s discovery of quasicrystals, the skepticism Shechtman faced from within the scientific community, and the subsequent challenges of finding practical uses for these crystals once his conclusions were widely accepted.   

Other winners from Hunter included Sabreena Chowdhury, who won third-place in the chemistry category; Ivelina Sotirova and Gianluca Arianna, who won first and third place respectively in physics; Kevin Wu, who won top honors for economics; and Linda Miranda, who finished second in the physiology/medicine category. 

In addition to the prize Manichev received, first-place winners took home an Apple iMac computer, second-place an Apple iPod II, and third-place winners won an Amazon Kindle.