Four Stuyvesant Students Earn 2026 Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholar Distinction

The 2026 Regeneron Science Talent Search (STS) scholars were announced on January 7. The top 300 students were acknowledged, including four Stuyvesant students—Sophia Yinghan, Hailan Chen, Vincent Chen, and Rhea Malhotra. All four scholars spent long hours into their research and application, resulting in their strong academic success.

The Regeneron STS is one of the oldest and most prestigious pre-college STEM competitions in the United States. Every year, thousands of students conduct original research, with Regeneron offering them a national platform to share their discoveries. To be voted as the top 300 scholars, three scientists with doctorates evaluate and score each contestant’s application and research report. Each scholar is awarded a $2,000 scholarship, with an additional $2,000 given to their high schools.

The Regeneron STS application opened in June 2025 and required interested students to submit a research report of up to 20 pages, their high school transcript, essay responses, and three recommendation letters, including one from a mentor and one from a teacher. Scholar and senior Vincent Chen highlighted the challenges of completing the lengthy application. “They’re pretty strict about how they want the report in. You have to write it independently by yourself,” Vincent Chen said. “And there are just a lot of guidelines that they have, so on top of college applications, it made it kind of difficult,” he said.

Scholar and senior Sophia Yinghan, who completed a report while not enrolled in the Regeneron class offered at Stuyvesant her senior year, shared a similar perspective on the intense application and described its structure. “A lot of the questions were more official things, like if there was any money involved, things like that. And then you also have to submit a common app essay and also write a couple other short responses,” Yinghan said. “When I finished [the] application, I genuinely felt that just finishing it was an accomplishment,” she said.

After completing Regeneron’s lengthy application, students submit their research papers. Scholar and senior Rhea Malhotra’s project, titled “Identifying Therapeutic Gene Targets for Cataract and Glaucoma,” focused on glaucoma, a vision-loss disease that affects her grandmother. Malhotra explained that she spent 40 hours per week for over six weeks conducting summer research, incorporating computational methods, two UK Biobank datasets, and a GWAS (a database of published scientific papers that identifies gene-trait relationships) to study genes associated with the disease. “Through GWAS comparisons, pathway analyses, and expression analyses, I ultimately identified 14 genes associated with cataract and glaucoma, providing insight into disease development and potential targets for future genetic therapies,” Malhotra said.

Another STS scholar, senior Hailan Chen, conducted research on a different disease. Her project, titled “Class IIa Histone Deacetylase HDAC7 Acts as Master Regulator of STAT3 Inflammatory Pathways and HMGCS1 Cholesterol Synthesis Pathways in Reactive Astrocytes” focused on the involvement of astrocytes, a type of brain immune cell, in a brain disorder called Alzheimer’s Disease.

Hailan Chen’s research achieved outstanding results in Regeneron, but becoming an STS scholar was not an easy task. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done and I, along with all of my peers, poured so many hours and and so much effort into our projects, be it understanding our topics, gathering data, or writing our papers,” she said in an email interview.

To conduct quality research, Hailan Chen had to focus on developing technical skills for doing lab work, as well as building a better understanding of her topic through textbook knowledge, “I worked in the lab for a year and a half, but I only worked on this project for the latter half of my time after building my skills. The process began with a lot of literature review and consultation with mentors to familiarize myself with the topic,” she said. “I planned out all my experimental design too. During experimentation, I was learning new techniques, and spent the day gathering data and the night analyzing it.”

Other scholars also described their research journeys. Vincent Chen’s project, titled “Harnessing Ferroelectric HfO2-Modified Carbon Nanotube Membranes for Efficient Hydrogen Atom Generation and Transport Toward Sustainable Ammonia Synthesis,” focused on creating specialized membranes that should transport hydrogen. Vincent Chen first reached out to his mentor in April 2025 and read relevant literature between April to June. “But then, for most of the summer, I was just working on this research project through the American Chemical Society, so I would go in, essentially 40 hours a week for the entire summer, roughly,” Vincent Chen said. “And then I would just work on my project, just doing that lab and things like that.” 

During the research process, scholars faced challenges due to the ambiguity of their experiments. Yinghan’s project, titled “Coloring-Based Knot Invariants in Projective Space,” was based on the mathematical concept of knot theory, which focuses on how closed loops can be tangled in 3D space without being cut. This required her to develop systems of colorings for knots in space. Yinghan recalled that one of her biggest struggles was developing a concrete conclusion for her experiment. “One of the challenges that I faced was that it’s kind of an open-ended question. Like instead of ‘is this true’ or ‘find a number,’ it’s more like ‘find a set of rules that work,’” Yinghan said. She also described difficulty in answering the application questions, since they were largely based on the traditional scientific method and her experiment did not follow a typical hypothesis-and-lab-work structure. As a result, Yinghan resolved this conflict by detailing her process of her experiment and trying to align with her ideas as best as she could.

Scholars also faced setbacks from failed experiments. Hailan Chen explained that her biggest challenge was the trial and error of her experiments. “I experienced a lot of setbacks because my experiments kept failing,” she said. “This put pressure on me mentally, and I was also feeling the time crunch.” Ultimately, Hailan Chen overcame this barrier through her pivot to new experimental directions and working through troubleshooting with experienced seniors.

Nevertheless, the scholars also expressed strong satisfaction with their projects. Vincent Chen felt particularly accomplished when he discovered a solution of creating the membranes to his experiment. “I realized, I think, how impactful our work was, because we managed to benchmark our work with other metal membranes like nickel and palladium. And it turns out that we actually, like, outcompeted them by a pretty sizable region,” Vincent Chen said. “So I think that was the most exciting part of my research, just seeing the hundreds of hours that I worked on my project actually pay off,” he said. 

Other scholars were also passionate about presenting their research. Malhotra explained that she was initially nervous to talk in front of experienced scientists at her summer program. “Everybody was so encouraging and once I got into the flow of things, I actually enjoyed presenting immensely,” Malhotra said. “It felt great to talk about the work I had done and have people ask questions because they were genuinely interested; it made me feel like my work was valued and gave me more confidence in public speaking.” Through her Regeneron experience, Malhotra gained a stronger sense of pride in showcasing her work.

Looking ahead, scholars reflected on what their success meant for their future professions in the scientific field. “[Regeneron] confirmed my interest in a career in science, but it also exposed me to possibilities I hadn’t previously considered,” Malhotra said. “Before this, I mainly viewed academia and medicine as the main paths in biology, but I learned that many opportunities in fields like pharmaceuticals and biotechnology exist too.” Malhotra is looking forward to further exploring her options in college.

Hailan Chen’s experience with Regeneron made her want to pursue research in college, where she hopes to work in a biochemistry lab and gain more knowledge about a specific scientific field. “I’m interested in learning more about chemical drug development, because my team worked with a partner lab that was chemistry-based, but I never got to work in that,” she said.

Yinghan emphasized that her experience in Regeneron was not centered on winning, but rather a memorable experience for her to grow. “I don’t know if this sounds bad, but I didn’t feel like I needed a contest to validate the fact that I thought that my project was good and it was a good experience for me,” Yinghan said. “Like, it’s definitely nice. But I think that the research itself was more important to me than winning a contest.”

For students interested in pursuing STEM research opportunities such as Regeneron, Malhotra encouraged taking initiative. “When it comes to finding research opportunities, I would say don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. You should apply to any programs you are interested in and reach out to as many professors as you can,” she said. “If you are really passionate about research, you should work as hard as you can to find opportunities and take advantage of the ones you do get.”