Girls Sweep Intel's International Science and Engineering Fair!

by Sheril R. Kirshenbaum     Department:

It's that special time of year again when the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) gives high school students an opportunity to shine.  This year, nearly 15,000 students from 47 countries competed in Atlanta for scholarships and prizes.  And the winners are....

(drum roll please)

GIRLS! 

Sana Raoof, left, 17, of Muttontown, N.Y., Yi-Han Su, 17, center, of Chinese Taipei and Natalie Saranga Omattage, right, 17, of Cleveland, Miss., pose after receiving top honors at the 2008 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Atlanta, Friday, May 16, 2008.

So much for the ladies scoring poorly on science, engineering, and mathematics, eh?  I'm proud to announce this year's grand prize recipients:

Efficient Hydrogen Production Using Cu-Zn-Al Catalysts Prepared by Homogeneous Precipitation Method by Yi-Han Su, 17 from Taipei Municipal First Girls' Senior High School in Taipei

Development of Biosensors for Detecting Hazardous Chemicals by Natalie Saranga Omattage, 17, from The Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science in Columbus

Computation of the Alexander-Conway Polynomial on the Chord Diagrams of Singular Knots by Sana Raoof, 17 of Jericho High School in Jericho, New York

But both girls and boys gave us reason to celebrate!  The Seaborg SIYSS Award went to the top three high school seniors who will receive a trip to December's Nobel Prize ceremonies in Stockholm!  So additional congratulations to:

Kaleigh Anne Eichel, 17, of Strongsville Senior High School, in Strongsville, Ohio for her project, The Ability to Learn: Learning and Communication between Comet Goldfish

Dongyoung Kim, 17, of the Korean Minjok Leadership Academy, in Anheung, Gangwon, South Korea for his computer science project Real-Time Water Wave Simulation with Surface Advection

Eric Nelson Delgado, 18,of Bayonne High School, Bayonne, New Jersey for his project on Engineering a Novel Gram-Negative Effective Efflux Pump Inhibitor

Twenty-five percent of projects at the fair received category grand awards ranging from $500-$5000 AND first and second award winners will also get a minor planet named after them by MIT's Lincoln Laboratory!

Take a look at Yi-Han Su's abstract:

"In industry, high-activity catalyst is desirable for methanol reforming reaction in order to generate hydrogen efficiently. In the project, multi-composition Cu-Zn-Al catalyst was synthesized by homogeneous precipitation (HP) method with urea treatment. In comparison with those obtained from conventional co-precipitation method, our technique offers an opportunity to improve the homogeneity of metal mixing and to increase the surface area of catalysts. By adjusting urea concentration, water amount, reaction temperature and time, various hydrotalcite-like compounds are obtained. The optimized catalysts having flower-like morphology exhibited high surface area (78.5 m²/g, as determined by Brunaer-Emmett-Teller method), and a lower reduction temperature. The HP-method derived Cu-Zn-Al catalyst exhibited higher methanol conversion, hydrogen production rate, and CO₂-selectivity under methanol reforming reaction at 523K compared with those derived by co-precipitation method. To further improve the catalytic performance of the Cu-Zn-Al, Ce and Zr were employed to modify the support. The Ce/Zr-modified catalysts did show higher activity as evidence by a 20K lower reduction temperature and more than 85% of methanol coversion. Our method can be generalized for the synthesis of other multi-composition materials with high homogeneity."

Tags: girls, scholarship, science fair