Redmond resident Katherine Wang is a regional finalist in the Siemens Competition, launched in 1998 to recognize America’s best and brightest math and science students.

Wang, a senior at Interlake High School in Bellevue, will compete this weekend at “Cal Tech” (California Institute of Technology) for a $6,000 scholarship and a chance at the national finals in New York City in December. The grand prize for the finals is $100,000. By making it to the regional finals, Wang will automatically receive a $1,000 scholarship.

Wang and her team mate Sreetha Sidharthan of Bellevue, also a senior at Interlake High, have produced a biology project called “Polypetides during the Origin of Life: Could functional proteins have been randomly synthesized before and during the RNA world?”

An International Baccalaureate diploma candidate, Wang, along with her team mate, is co-president and co-founder of her school’s International Club. Her favorite subject is chemistry, although she is engaged in a full IB and AP course load which also includes math, government and history of the Americas, English composition and literautre, music, Spanish and Theory of Knowledge.

For more information about the Siemens Foundation and its support of science, technology, engineering and math programs in the United States, visit www.siemens-foundation.org.