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"(COVID-19) highlights a set of students that’s so far receiving no special attention that I can spot: gifted and talented youngsters and their need for acceleration, enrichment and advancement designed to make the most of their abilities," said Chester E. Finn, Jr. of the Fordham Institute. "So let’s keep all those other smart out-of-school kids in the forefront of today’s education concerns, too." 

The Davidson Fellows Scholarship sets out to do just that, awarding $50,000, $25,000 and $10,000 scholarships to extraordinary young people, 18 and under, who have completed a significant piece of work. Application categories are Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Literature, Music, Philosophy and Outside the Box. 

Through the years, a number of Fellows have developed research specifically related to fighting infectious diseases, which is very much top of mind throughout the current pandemic. These Fellows' projects are highlighted below. 

Madeleine Yang - 2019 Davidson Fellow
"My project is to search for a universal influenza vaccine that will offer greater protection and shorter production timeframes compared to conventional egg or cell-based methods. One reason for the flu vaccine’s inefficacy is the traditional egg-based platform, which has a 6 to 9 month production time. During that time, viral mutations lead to vaccine inefficiency, and the need for hundreds of millions of chicken eggs make the method unequipped to handle pandemics. 

"Our approach is to incorporate the highly conserved influenza matrix protein M2 into the engineered virus-like particles (VLPs), eliminating the usage of eggs and enabling a shorter timeframe and a larger scale of production." 

Rahul Subramaniam - 2018 Davidson Fellow
"The main impact of my project is enabling health workers to rapidly quarantine and isolate areas that could be harboring Zika virus. It works by detecting Zika virus in live mosquito populations in real time, so it can tell you almost immediately if a certain area is carrying Zika virus or not. My system is a major improvement on this turnaround time. "All of this allows health workers to evacuate areas immediately and prevent people from getting infected with the virus by targeting its most crucial vector. It also enables health agencies to concentrate their more detailed tests (such as PCR) on only the regions that are suspected of containing Zika virus instead of spreading these resources over large areas." 

Eric Chen - 2014 Davidson Fellow
Eric’s science project, “Computer-Aided Discovery of Novel Anti-Flu Drug Candidates to Fight Pandemics,” combined computational modeling and simulation with biological and structural studies to speed the discovery of new flu medicine. Eric was able to find several new influenza inhibitors to a number of flu targets, which show promise for development into real medicine or even a combination therapy, which could prevent viral resistance. The 2009 outbreak of swine flu caught Eric’s attention, and his interest and concern grew as he learned more about the various flu strains and potential for the next pandemic.


The 2021 Davidson Fellows application will open November 2, 2020. How to Apply >

View past Davidson Gifted blog posts here > 

Davidson Young Scholars - FREE Services for Profoundly Gifted Students The national Davidson Young Scholars program provides FREE services designed to nurture the intellectual, social, emotional, and academic development of profoundly intelligent young people between the ages of 5 and 18 (students must be between the ages of 5 and 16 when applying). Benefits of the program include: Consulting Services An Online Community In-person Connections Community Service Endeavors Summer Programs (fee-based) Applications are due the first of each month. For more information, see the How to Apply and Qualification Criteria pages.