Jonathan Hunter Huggins

MASSACHUSETTS

Jonathan Hunter Huggins, 19, of Arlington, conducted research in computational linguistics - a discipline involving the "training" of computers to understand certain aspects of natural human language - for the computer sciences project he submitted to the Intel Science Talent Search. Jonathan studied named entity recognition software attempting to differentiate among five categories of data appearing in diverse business media, ranging from newspapers to Web site entries. Then he compared three different methods of improving computer performance. He found all three to be beneficial, but most effective when used together - an approach that reduced computer error by half. Jonathan believes his research could improve the accuracy of the automated analysis of financial news, and he is co-author of a paper on his findings that will be submitted for publication. At Middlesex School in Concord, he plays cello in the chamber ensemble and is the literary magazine editor. Jonathan leads the robotics club and is also an artificial intelligence researcher. The son of Christopher Huggins and Helene Mary Sullas-Huggins, he has myriad academic awards and plans to study physics and computer science.