Intel Science Talent Search

By Nancy Steinbach

This is the VOA Special English SCIENCE REPORT.

A teen-age girl from the state of Connecticut has won the top prize in the Intel Science Talent Search. The competition was known as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search until Nineteen-Ninety-Eight. It is the oldest program in the United States that honors the science projects of high school students. The Intel Science Talent Search celebrated its sixtieth anniversary this year.

The winners receive money for a college education and a new computer. More than one-thousand-five-hundred students entered projects for the competition. The students were from thirty-six states and the District of Columbia. Forty-nine percent were female and fifty-one percent were male. Their research projects involved every area of science, including chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering, social science and biology.

Forty students were invited to Washington, D. C. for the final judging by well-known scientists. They judged the students on their research ability and creative thinking. They also questioned the students about scientific problems before deciding on the top ten winners.

The first place winner was Mariangela Lisanti of Westport, Connecticut. She received one-hundred-thousand dollars for her college education. Her physics project involved the use of single atoms or molecules to create electronic devices. She developed a new way to measure electron movement in tiny structures.

The second place winner was Nathaniel Jay Craig of Sacramento, California. He received seventy-five-thousand dollars for his college education for a physics project. He developed a method for expressing the strength of specially prepared glass by describing the super cooled liquid from which it was formed.

The third place winner was Gabriel Drew Carroll of Oakland, California. He received fifty-thousand dollars for his college education. His mathematics project involved the partial order of numbers.

The president of Intel, Craig Barrett, praised all the finalists as future leaders. He said their understanding of science and mathematics is important for making sense of the technological world today. And it is important for making the best decisions in the future.

This VOA Special English SCIENCE REPORT was written by Nancy Steinbach.