Harris-Stowe State University senior biology major David Marango received second-place honors at the recent 2012 Emerging Researchers National Competition in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) in Atlanta, Ga.
A panel of judges awarded Marango a $200 prize in the undergraduate level for his oral presentation in the Mathematics and Statistics category, in which he researched “Mathematical Modeling of Genetic Counseling with Application to Sickle Cell Anemia.” Specifically, the project looked at how genetic counseling affects prevalence of sickle cell anemia in different populations.
Marango, along with his faculty advisor Dr. Ann Podleski, an HSSU professor of mathematics, hypothesized that genetic counseling would result in deviation from random mating and from the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE) for sickle cell genotype.
The project was supported by the $2.5 million National Science Foundation HBCU-UP Implementation grant that HSSU acquired in 2009.
