Former Tauranga student James Zingel has been named winner of the 2021 Prime Minister's Future Science Prize. Photo / Supplied
Former Tauranga student James Zingel has been named winner of the 2021 Prime Minister's Future Science Prize. Photo / Supplied
A 19-year-old whiz kid from Tauranga has been selected the winner of this year's Prime Minister's Future Scientist Prize.
James Zingel, a former Bethlehem College student, joins an esteemed group of alumni including Professor Michael Baker, Dr Siouxsie Wiles and Professor Shaun Hendy, who have each won the prize before.
Zingel was selected for his work towards better analysis of breast cancer and potentially saving lives with earlier detection.
The University of Auckland student's research involves using breast cancer data run through classic computers and quantum computers to see which is better at detecting the cancer. The increased computer power offers the opportunity to find additional patterns in the data and potentially enable earlier detection of breast cancer.
"In medicine, it's really important there's an early diagnosis that's correct and it's quite hard for doctors to do this," James said.
"So, if the computer can correctly identify what the disease is, you have a much better chance of surviving it. It's particularly important in breast cancer."
Microbiologist Dr Siouxsie Wiles is a former winner of the Prime Minister's Future Scientist prize. Photo / File
Quantum computers operate differently from classic computers and are able to better analyse complex information. Such computers had the potential to be faster at computing certain problems, known as quantum speedup.
Zingel tried using quantum speedup when classifying cancer types and taught himself linear algebra to help calculate algorithms. He also used a type of machine learning algorithm called a Support Vector Machine which has worked successfully on both classic and quantum computers.
His findings, for now, show classic computers are still better than quantum methods "but I suspect as our quantum computing grows ... quantum algorithm will much outperform the classical one in the very near future".
Zingel has spent hundreds of hours on the project and has enjoyed every minute.
"I love sharing my project with people. I love teaching them a bit more about quantum physics, especially as they think I'm an expert in it, I'm really not, but it really is my passion and I love how people always get excited by it and excited by the future and that's the exact same reaction that I have, so it's been a wonderful project to do," he said.
"Ideally I want to get in involved in quantum physics. I'd love to become a quantum physicist and discover some new things about quantum physics or quantum computing, but we will see what happens at university."
Bethlehem College principal Larne Edmeades had great hopes for what Zingel could achieve in the future.
"James' project was obviously a very significant part of his senior schooling here at Bethlehem but, to be fair, the majority of the momentum came from James himself. And I'm sure, given his whole-hearted approach, that he will do tremendously well with like-minded and talented people at university level."
James has just started his first year at university studying for a bachelor of science degree, double-majoring in physics and maths.
He receives a prize of $50,000 to go towards the cost of his education.
