Intel this week handed out $150,000 prizes to three "teen geniuses" who placed first in this year's edition of the Intel Science Talent Search competition sponsored by the chip giant and run by the non-profit Society for Science & the Public.


Winners Noah Golowich, 17, of Lexington, Mass., Andrew Jin, 17, of San Jose, Calif., and Michael Hofmann Winer, 18, of North Bethesda, Md. were feted at a ceremony held Tuesday in Washington, D.C.


"A solid foundation in science, technology, engineering, and math creates the critical talent corporations and startups need to drive their business and contribute to economic development," Intel president Renee James said in a statement. "We hope this program will encourage other young people to become the next generation of scientists, inventors and engineers."


Golowich took home the First Place Medal of Distinction for Basic Research for developing a "proof in the area of Ramsey theory, a field of mathematics based on finding types of structure in large and complicated systems," Intel said.


Jin earned a First Place Medal of Distinction for Global Good in recognition of his development of "a machine learning algorithm to identify adaptive mutations across the human genome." The teen's system was used to analyze "massive public genomic datasets" and managed to discover "more than 100 adaptive mutations related to immune response, metabolism, brain development, and schizophrenia in real DNA sequences," Intel said.


Winer, who last year won a silver medal at the International Physics Olympiad, received Intel's First Place Medal of Distinction for Innovation for his research into "how fundamental quasi-particles of sound, called phonons, interact with electrons," the company said. Intel added that Winer's "work could potentially be applied to more complex atomic structures such as superconductors.


This year's Intel Science Talent Search saw 1,844 high school seniors from around the United States enter the contest. That number was reduced to 40 finalists from 36 schools in 18 states, each of whom traveled to the nation's capital for this week's final event and received a minimum of $7,500 for their efforts.


Others receiving large cash prizes and high honors in the Intel Science Talent Search 2015 competition included three second-place finishers who were given $75,000 prizes and three third-place winners who were awarded $35,000.


Second-Place Finishers