Briefs · Education and Upskilling
Rachel Chen Drew Quantum Physics, and Won $100,000 for It
Quantum physics is famously hard to picture. Rachel Chen pictured it anyway.
The 18-year-old senior at Marlborough School in Los Angeles took fourth place at the 2026 Regeneron Science Talent Search. The prize was $100,000.
Her project was titled “The Dual Canonical Basis in the Spin Representation via the Temperley-Lieb Algebra”. The title is forbidding. The idea is elegant.
Chen built a visual framework for systems of many quantum particles. She used Temperley-Lieb diagrams, simple point-and-line drawings, to describe how those particles behave. She extended a finding from 1997 to show how a magnetic field influences an entire quantum system.
Quantum particles interact with their surroundings in complex ways. Mathematics alone makes that interaction hard to follow. A diagram makes it visible.
Chen is an alumna of the Center for Excellence in Education’s 2025 Research Science Institute, jointly sponsored with MIT. She was chosen from more than 2,600 entrants. Forty finalists shared more than $1.8 million in awards.
The top prize, $250,000, went to Connor Hill of Pennsylvania. Chen’s fourth place proves a quieter point. Clarity is not a simplification, but rather a form of discovery: simple, striking, and surprisingly clear.
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