Announcing The Pioneer Academics 2019 Research Journal

Note: due to unforeseen circumstances caused by Covid-19, the evaluation and selection process for the 2019 Pioneer Research Journal was delayed. We thank all of the parents, teachers, and – most importantly – students, for your patience during this process. 

Pioneer Academics’ Research Program is the world’s only online research program providing US college credit for exceptional secondary students. Today, the program officially announces the 23 original research papers that will be featured in the 2019 Pioneer Academics Research Journal. Each paper was nominated by a mentoring professor and underwent a rigorous faculty peer review evaluation process. The Pioneer Research Journal is a collection of outstanding research that depicts the extraordinary scholarship that high school students across the world can achieve. 

Each nominated paper was considered by the Pioneer Research Journal Committee, a panel of 41 esteemed professors from top American undergraduate and graduate institutions. This panel determined which papers were selected for the Journal. The selected papers constitute the top 4% of papers in the 2019 academic year of the Pioneer Research Program.  

This nomination represents not only an academic achievement but also a personal one for many of these Pioneer Scholars. Their research papers underwent Pioneer’s academic oversight and the Journal’s thorough review process, and emerged as remarkable scholarly works. This major accomplishment highlights the research skills mastered by these Pioneer Scholars. Through Pioneer, today’s high school students now have access to the academic resources needed to reach their true potential, breaking political, geographic, socioeconomic, and personal barriers while doing so. Justine Kum, a Pioneer scholar from Dulwich College in Seoul, South Korea who is now attending University College London, testifies that Pioneer helped her “discover new areas of interests that I never considered before, and most importantly, more about myself and my capabilities as an individual.”

Annalise Selden, a student from Pine Crest School in Florida, USA who is now studying at the University of Chicago, also notes that the multifaceted nature of Pioneer’s Research Program helped her develop a variety of important skills: “In the process of writing, I not only learned interesting content in one of my favorite subject areas but also learned better time management, organization, and research methodologies.” She added that publication in the journal serves as an important first step toward her future professional goals, and that the Pioneer Research Program reinforced that research is a meaningful future direction for her: “My dream is to be a professor and to have my research published at this stage will help establish my track towards this profession. Through Pioneer, I have learned how much I love to research and discover more about the world.”

For many of these students, Pioneer Academics is only the first step in a lifelong journey of scholarship and research. According to Yixuan Zhao, an incoming first year student at Cornell University who graduated from the Shenzhen College of International Education in Shenzhen, China,  “It was definitely thrilling to hear that my paper was selected to be published in the Pioneer Journal, which is the first time I am able to share my thoughts and findings with aspiring scholars around the world.” 

The nominated research papers include research across academic disciplines, including humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields. Research papers by students from six different countries were published: United States, China, India, Bangladesh, Estonia, and South Korea.  Two students are still attending high school, and the remaining 21 have enrolled in universities in the US, the UK, Canada, and China. The following is a list of the students whose work was selected for publication in this year’s journal along with their high schools, titles of their research papers, and their research concentration: 

Aditya Waddodagi

High School: Greenwood High International School, India

University: Washington University in St. Louis, U.S.

Pioneer research area: International Relations

Pioneer research concentration: Political Risk and Prediction

Pioneer research topic: Sri Lanka Risk Analysis

Annalise Selden

High School: Pine Crest School, U.S.

University: University of Chicago, U.S.

Pioneer research area: Art history

Pioneer research concentration: The Medieval Mediterranean: Confluence of Cultures

Pioneer research topic: The Ceiling of the Cappella Palatina: Norman Sicily’s Diversity and Artistic Style Under Roger II

Cheng Qian

High School: TsingHua University High School, China

University: TsingHua University, China

Pioneer research area: Mathematics

Pioneer research concentration: Introduction to Combinatorics and Graph Theory

Pioneer research topic: An investigation in Tournaments with Bidirectional Arcs

Dihan Mashroor Niloy

High School: DPS STS School Dhaka, Bangladesh

University: University of Toronto, Canada

Pioneer research area: Philosophy

Pioneer research concentration: Descartes’ Meditations

Pioneer research topic: The Impossibility of Certainty: A Critique of Rene Descartes’ ‘Meditations on First Philosophy’

Elis Soord

High School: Pearson College UWC, Canada

University: Brown University, U.S.

Pioneer research area: Chemistry

Pioneer research concentration: Food Science

Pioneer research topic: Would Limiting Animal Product Consumption Be an Effective Public Health Strategy? The Role of Industrial Farming in the European Union as a Catalyst for Foodborne Disease Resulting from Antimicrobial-resistant Bacteria.

Fengyi Ou

High School: Branksome Hall, Canada

Pioneer research area: Economics

Pioneer research concentration: The Politics of the Gig Economy: Entrepreneurship, Technological Innovation, and Politics

Pioneer research topic: Adverse Selection in the Chinese Healthcare System: Reducing Information Asymmetry to Optimize the Utilization of Hospital Capacity

Guankai Zhai

High School: Jining Confucius International School/YK Pao School, China

University: Cornell University, U.S.

Pioneer research area: STS

Pioneer research concentration: The History of Information

Pioneer research topic: Cockpit Instruments: a Historical Study of the Ergonomic Considerations in Aircraft

Hui Lan

High School: International School of Beijing, China

University: Barnard College, U.S.

Pioneer research area: Biology

Pioneer research concentration: The Gut Microbiome

Pioneer research topic: Research Proposal: The relationship between gut microbiome, hormones, and acne vulgaris disease presentation

Irene Chen

High School: Leland High School, U.S.

University: Cornell University, U.S.

Pioneer research area: Engineering

Pioneer research concentration: Nanotechnology

Pioneer research topic: A Monte Carlo Simulation of the Single-Electron Transistor

Justine Kum

High School: Dulwich College Seoul, South Korea

University: University College London, UK

Pioneer research area: Education

Pioneer research concentration: Foundations of American Education

Pioneer research topic: Social Media and its effects on the Foreign Language Curriculum for Undergraduate University Students

Ruochen Jin

High School: The Woodlands High School, U.S.

University: The University of Texas at Austin, U.S.

Pioneer research area: Culture Studies/ Ethnomusicology

Pioneer research concentration: Mapping Culture Through Music

Pioneer research topic: A Blended Culture: Greater Houston Area’s Native American Children’s Contest Powwow

Sahana Prasanna

High School: Monta Vista High School, U.S.

University: Rice University, U.S.

Pioneer research area: Music Theory

Pioneer research concentration: Analysis of Musical Rhythm 

Pioneer research topic: Human Intuition, Perception, and Execution of a Five-Beat Versus a Seven-Beat Rhythmic Cycle

Sarah Liu

High School: Kent School, U.S.

University: Brown University, U.S.

Pioneer research area: History

Pioneer research concentration: The Scientific Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Pioneer research topic: Science in Women’s Cosmetics of 17th Century Europe

Shuyu Chen

High School: WHBC of Wuhan Foreign Languages School, China

University: Washington University in St. Louis, U.S.

Pioneer research area: Art History

Pioneer research concentration: Leonardo Da Vinci

Pioneer research topic: Comparative Analysis of Leonardo da Vinci’s Santa Maria Della Neve and Huang Gongwang’s The Remaining Mountain

Sumin Yoon

High School: School for the Talented and Gifted, U.S.

University: Rice University, U.S.

Pioneer research area: Anthropology

Pioneer research concentration: Anthropology of STS

Pioneer research topic: The Invisible Culture of Pain and The Opioid Crisis

Tianhao Li

High School: Beijing National Day School, China

University: Northwestern University, U.S.

Pioneer research area: Business

Pioneer research concentration: Making a Difference in Entrepreneurship: Thinking outside the barrel to create integration experiences for global entrepreneurial community development

Pioneer research topic: Comparison of Determinants of Entrepreneurial Intentions in China and the USA

Vikhyath Mondreti

High School: The International School Bangalore (TISB), India

University: UC Berkeley, U.S.

Pioneer research area: Computer Science

Pioneer research concentration: Networks: from Searching the World Wide Web to Slowing the Spread of Infectious Diseases

Pioneer research topic: A Complex Networks Approach to Analysing the Erdos-Straus Conjecture and Related Problems

Xinshi Ma

High School: BASIS International School Shenzhen, China

University: Duke University, U.S.

Pioneer research area: Economics

Pioneer research concentration: The Political Economy of International Development

Pioneer research topic: An Institutional Analysis of the Military’s Role in the Egyptian Economy

Yixuan(Skye) Zhao

High School: Shenzhen College of International Education, China

University: Cornell University, U.S.

Pioneer research area: Biology

Pioneer research concentration: Modeling Blood Flow to Fight Cardiovascular Disease

Pioneer research topic: Computational Modeling and Simulation of Vulnerable Plaque in the Femoral Artery

Yuting Huang

High School: Culver Academies, U.S.

University: UCLA, U.S.

Pioneer research area: Biology

Pioneer research concentration: Cell Biology

Pioneer research topic: Macrophage migration inhibition factor: A cancer promoter, potential prognosticator and chemotherapeutic target

Zhanhao Zhang

High School: Shen Wai International School, China

Pioneer research area: Business

Pioneer research concentration: Making a Difference in Entrepreneurship: Thinking outside the barrel to create integration experiences for global entrepreneurial community development

Pioneer research topic: The Impact of Entrepreneurial Activities and Innovation on the United States’ Economy from 2011 to 2018: Drawing Statistics from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and Other Organizations

Ziqian (Alexa) Jin

High School: The Experimental High School Attached to Beijing Normal University, China

University: The University of Chicago, U.S.

Pioneer research area: Mathematics

Pioneer research concentration: Fibonacci Numbers and Visual Proofs

Pioneer research topic: Tetranacci Identities with Squares, Dominos, and Hexagonal Double-Strips*

Ziyang Zheng

High School: The Experimental High School Attached to Beijing Normal University, China

University: University of Oxford, UK

Pioneer research area: Mathematics

Pioneer research concentration: Coding Theory and Cryptography

Pioneer research topic: Blockchain: Building Path to Utopia

* This paper is under consideration for publication in another journal