Kurtis Carsch, a student in UNT’s Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, was named one of 40 finalists in the 2012 Intel Science Talent Search for his work on developing a way to more efficiently convert methane gas into methanol. In March, he traveled to Washington, D.C., to present his project to a panel of judges.

Carsch worked on the project in UNT’s Center for Advanced Scientific Computing and Modeling under the direction of Thomas Cundari, Regents Professor of computational chemistry. Carsch’s work is part of a larger project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Center for Catalytic Hydrocarbon Functionalization.

After he graduates in May, Carsch hopes to study nuclear chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was one of nine TAMS students who qualified as an Intel semi-finalist, making UNT fourth among all schools in the nation for the most semifinalists from a single school.