Wednesday, March 2 2005 10:34 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Houston: Four Indian-American students were among the 24 selected from across the United States for the 2004-2005 Siemens Awards for Advanced Placement.

Kirtana Raja of St John's School, Houston, Shrenik Shah of Monta Vista High School, Cupertina, Veena Venkatachalam of Governor Livingston High School, Berkeley Heights, and Ryan Perumpail of Manalapan High School, Englishtown, New Jersey won the award, which honours students who score the highest marks on the College Board's Advanced Placement Program science and math courses.

Each student receives a $ 3,000 scholarship to the college of their choice.

Kirtana Raja, 17, a senior at her school, is a student researcher at the Bayeor College of Medicine for the second year and has finished a Nanotech research project at University of Texas at Dallas last summer as a Welch Summer Scholar, reports said.

Kirtana Raja's high scores in chemistry, biology, physics and calculus examinations, won her this years award and scholarships from the Siemens Foundation, a non-profit arm of the Siemens electronics corporation based in New York City.

Shah, who has earlier qualified for the Mathematical and Chemistry Olympiad and reached the semi finals of the US Physics Olympiad and Biology Olympiad, has been a member of the American Regions Math League (ARML).

President of Monta Vista Robotics and the Math and Science Club, Shah plans to study mathematics and computer sciences and pursue a career in research or teaching.

Veena Venkatachalam, who participated in the International Research Science Institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology last year, has won several awards at the North Jersey Regional Science Bee, reports said.

A two-time Biology Olympiad semi finalist and winner of several medals in the New Jersey Science Olympiad, Veena Venkatachalam was named a candidate in the 2005 Presidential Scholars Program.

Ryan Perumpail, 17, a senior at his school, is recipient of several individual as well as team awards, which include 2005 Manalapan High School Star Ledger Scholarship nomination, 2004 AP scholar with distinction and 2004 Merit Scholarship Award of the Federation of Kerala Associations of North America.

The AP Program is a signature program of the College Board which selects Siemens Awards for Advanced Placement winners from six US regions: New England, Middle States, South, Midwest, Southwest and West, a press release issued by the Siemens Foundation said.

With the award, Siemens gives, "additional national attention to young people in math and science, so, hopefully, others will look at them as models," said Jack Bergen, president of the Siemens Foundation.

"We are definitely interested in making sure that the US continues to produce graduates in math, science and engineering," he added.