STS 2012 Finalist Rachel Davis Describes Her Experience

Rachel Davis, Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS) 2012 Finalist, discusses her research, experience at the Intel STS, and more.

 

What was your experience being an Intel STS finalist like? 

The week I spent in Washington D.C. for Intel STS was the best experience of my life.  I was so honored to have been chosen as an Intel STS Finalist, and then the opportunity to fly to Washington D.C. and meet so many brilliant people was just incredible.  My teacher kept telling me that I would never be the same afterwards, and she was completely right.  All the finalists were treated like celebrities, followed around by cameras and given gourmet meals.  The judges were really fun to hang out with, and on the last morning I ate breakfast with two Nobel Laureates.  The best part was definitely the people; the other finalists were so smart and fun to be around, and I miss them so much.

 

Can you provide a short description of your research and how you initially became interested in this topic? 

Five years ago, my house burned down.  It was a traumatizing experience, and I lost absolutely everything that I owned.  However, I stuck to my studies, and I really wanted to help people and prevent what happened to me from happening to other people in the future.  I joined my local fire department as a volunteer, and became the first nationally certified firefighter in my department.  During my fire training, I saw that a lot more gas tanks are being made of plastics that burn quickly in car fires.  This facilitates a need for flame retardant plastics, and I decided to look for labs that would allow me to research how I could create these.

 

What makes your research different from what has been done with flame retardants in the past? 

Traditionally, halogenated substances, or those containing elements like bromine, have been added to materials to improve their flame retardancy.  However, these materials have been found to release really dark, dense smoke when they are on fire, and even when they are not on fire they are releasing harmful materials that we are inhaling every day.  I used a phosphate-based substance as an alternative to these harmful materials, and it worked as a great flame retardant additive to plastics!  Not only could these substances be added to biodegradable plastics, but I’m finding now that they work as great additives to non-biodegradable plastics for uses in electronics.

 

How has doing original research and participating in programs like the Intel STS affected you? 

Performing research in a distinguished science research laboratory was such an honor, and being recognized for this research was an even greater honor.  It really means a lot to me that my research was labeled as important and relevant to society; I want to make a difference, and getting recognized for what I have done really means a lot.  Intel STS taught me that I am important and that my research wasn’t just like everyone else’s.  I have made a difference and discoveries unlike any others, and I hope to inspire others to pursue such goals as mine in the future.

 

What are your future plans? 

This summer, I will continue my research with biodegradable flame retardant materials at Stony Brook University at the GARCIA MRSEC program, where I will also be supervising high school students who would like to compete in competitions like Intel STS and ISEF.  I’m really excited to teach students all about my research and how to use the equipment, and I can’t wait to show them how much fun working in a laboratory can be! In the fall, I will attend MIT majoring in materials science and engineering, where I hope to continue my research with polymers.  I’m so excited!

  

Do you have any advice for young students interested in science? 

Get involved early!!  I think that a lot of students don’t understand that science isn’t just studying from a book – it is all around you.  Science is the computer in front of you; looking at how the speaker vibrates to produce a sound and how it was told to speak in the first place.  Science is studying bird migration patterns and detecting land mines.  Asking questions about how things work is the first step to finding answers, and making great discoveries.  If a particular question intrigues you, go and look for the answer, no matter how difficult the journey to the answer might be. 

 

SSP Alum Rolf Barth Understands the Importance of Having Encouraging Parents

In the early 1940s in Jackson Heights, New York, a mother took her young son, who was about 5 or 6 years old, to the movies. They saw Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet about Paul Ehrlich, a famous German doctor and Nobel Prize winner who found a treatment for syphilis and was the originator of the concept of antibodies.

 

Little did she know, that experience would change her son’s life. Rolf Barth (STS 1955) says it was then, in that theater, that he decided his life’s work. “That was it. I decided I wanted to be a doctor and a scientist.” His mother continued to help him pursue his dreams and, years later, drove him to the main post office in New York City to make sure that his STS project on immunologic enhancement was sent off to the Westinghouse Science Talent Search (now the Intel STS). Several months later he remembers telling his Italian grandmother, who didn’t speak English very well, “I’m expecting a very important telegram…so don’t lose it!”

 

Rolf received the telegram (which he still has) letting him know that he was an STS finalist. He spent a “marvelous week” in Washington, DC, making friends that he still keeps in touch with, including fellow finalist and Nobel Laureate Roald Hoffmann. “Being a Westinghouse winner helped me tremendously,” Rolf says. “That resulted in me getting a number of scholarship offers from universities.” He decided to accept a full tuition scholarship from Cornell University, from which he graduated in 1959.

 

Parenthetically, Roald Hoffmann has been at Cornell since 1965 and he and Rolf still keep in touch.
Rolf went on to conduct research with Nobel Prize winner George Snell, and earned a medical degree from Columbia University. He has published over 335 papers and is still as active as ever as a Professor in the Department of Pathology at The Ohio State University.

 

At the end of his extended CV, Rolf lists another major achievement. Of the many people he has trained over the years, he notes, that his most important trainees have been his four children. His two sons and two daughters all have ventured into their own fields of science and now work as a rocket scientist, an anesthesiologist, a professor of molecular biology, and a transplant surgeon.

Q&A with SSP Alumna Meredith MacGregor

Meredith MacGregor

Meredith MacGregor, the Intel Science Talent Search 2007 Ninth Place Winner and one of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair 2006 top award winners, discusses the Brazil Nut Effect, research at Harvard, inspiring girls to do science, and more.

 

What are your memories of Intel STS and Intel ISEF? What was it like to win the top award at Intel ISEF?
It is very difficult to distill all of my memories from Intel STS and Intel ISEF into a short enough response to fit into this interview.  While it may sound cheesy, some of my favorite memories from high school are from Intel STS and Intel ISEF.  Beyond that, some of my best friends are from Intel STS and Intel ISEF and I still keep in touch with many people from my year at Intel STS on a regular basis. It is truly a gift to know and have connections with such a talented group of scientists.

 

Winning the top award at Intel ISEF was an amazing experience.  I was absolutely floored when I heard my named called, so it took me a second to realize that I had to walk up to the stage. Given the incredible talent and competition at Intel ISEF, I think it is impossible to expect winning such an award.  I remember just being stunned and overjoyed at the same time. And, I definitely remember the confetti! (I saved some of it afterwards.)

 

What exactly is the Brazil Nut Effect?
The Brazil Nut Effect (BNE) is a phenomenon that occurs in granular materials.  Essentially, vigorous shaking of a container holding a granular material will cause the components to separate by size, the largest particles rising to the top and the smallest sinking to the bottom.  The name was coined because when you first open a can of mixed nuts, all of the large Brazil Nuts are on the top with all of the smaller nuts underneath, but you can also observe this effect in your morning breakfast cereal.  For my Intel ISEF and Intel STS project, I conducted a series of experiments to study the convective flow that gets set up in a shaken container of granular material and to track how larger “intruder” particles of different densities are carried in that flow.  As it turned out, air pressure plays a critical role in determining how quickly the larger particles rise to the surface.

 

How has doing research when you were young affected your career trajectory?
Doing research when I was young had a definite impact on my career trajectory.  My early research projects gave me my first tastes of the thrill of finding something new out on my own and observing something that nobody else had seen before. By the time I began college, I could not imagine doing anything else but scientific research for the rest of my life and I am still following that goal today.

 

What are you up to now?
I just graduated from Harvard College in May of 2011 and I decided to jump right into graduate school afterwards.  Currently, I am studying as a first year graduate student in Astronomy and Astrophysics at Harvard University.  It was just too difficult to leave Cambridge and all of the amazing research opportunities here. For my current research project, I am studying the disks of dust and debris that exist around young, recently formed stars. By performing observations with submillimeter interferometers like the SMA and ALMA, we hope to be able to probe the process of planet formation within these disks.

 

What got you involved with Harvard Science Club for Girls?
Science Club for Girls (SCFG) is a larger organization in the Boston and Cambridge area that aims to provide mentorship for young girls who are interested in science by running afterschool programs in science for girls in kindergarten through 6th grade.  Undergraduate and graduate women go once a week and teach an experiment-based curriculum on topics that range from Oceans to the Human Body to Rockets.  I heard about SCFG over an email list when I was a junior in college and I knew that I wanted to get involved.  I remember how much my mentors meant to me when I was first beginning my path towards a career in science and I love having the opportunity to fill that role for today’s aspiring scientists.  Most physical sciences are still vastly male-dominated fields and I think that it is critical that we continue to encourage and inspire young girls and women to pursue careers in these fields.

 

After I had been involved with SCFG for two years, we began the process of forming a Harvard Science Club for Girls student organization.  Having this new organization makes it much easier to reach out to other Harvard undergraduate and graduate students and get them involved in the program as well.  The more mentors we have, the more girls we can reach!

 

Do you have any advice for young students who are interested in science?
First, I would say that it is important to have a goal.  Think of what you ultimately want to be doing (and, don’t worry about the fact that it might change in the future) and then go for it! Having a target in mind makes dealing with the day-to-day challenges a little easier.  Second, jump into research.  Sitting in a classroom is one thing, but there is no better way to get excited about science than to start getting your hands dirty.  It is also a really good way to figure what areas of science you are particularly excited about.

• Visit the Intel STS 2007 Alumni Page
• Volunteer at the Intel ISEF 2012 in Pittsburgh, PA

 

 

 

SSP Alumnus Micah Toll Builds on his Intel ISEF Experience in Pittsburgh

SSP Alumnus Micah Toll with his PEVO

Micah Toll (DCYSC 2000, 2002; Intel ISEF 2006 and 2007; STS 2007 semifinalist) invented a building material that could revolutionize the way we build buildings. He recently shared his thoughts on Intel ISEF, his project, and what he is up to now at the University of Pittsburgh.

 

What are your memories of Intel ISEF?
I attended two [Intel] ISEFs, the 2006 in Indianapolis and the 2007 in Albuquerque. Both were incredible experiences for me in terms of shaping me as a scientist and engineer. The ISEF is an almost overwhelming collection of the brightest students in the world, each sharing their own specific research and fields of study. While I enjoyed viewing the other projects in my category of Engineering, I also loved walking around the other categories and learning about things I never knew existed. Students my age were doing research in every possible field imaginable and it was such an amazing experience to get to see all of this intellectual capital brought together in one place.

 

Oh, and being at trackside for the qualifying for the 2006 Indianapolis 500 wasn't too bad either...

 

Can you tell me a little bit about your project?
For my project I worked on research and development of a portable construction beam that could be used to build life-saving, rapid deployment shelters for remote areas of the world. The idea was to design a new type of material that could be quickly and easily shipped all over the world after natural disasters or used in refugee situations. My solution was a new type of construction beam made of plastic and foam that was light enough for children to use, easy enough to cut and build with so that it didn't require power tools, but could support thousands of pounds. I eventually founded a R&D company, Disaster Rebuilding Solutions, to continue work on the beams.

 

How has doing research when you were young affected your career trajectory?
It has defined my career trajectory and helped me to be a better engineer. I work with fellow engineers all day, and have found that many engineering students these days have made it through their education without learning or utilizing the scientific method. This means they are often missing important results because they haven't learned how to structure their experiments. By doing research when I was young I was able to learn valuable skills that have helped me to better comprehend and analyze my own engineering innovations by ensuring that I can control variables and really understand what my experiments and data are telling me.

 

Can you tell me a little bit about what you are up to now?
I recently founded an electric vehicle startup, Pulse Motors, with two of my classmates from the University of Pittsburgh. We are currently manufacturing a fleet of the first vehicle we have designed, the two wheeled Personal Electric Vehicle Zero, or PEV0, as we like to call it. The vehicle is similar to an electric motorcycle but with functional pedals that allow someone to pedal it as well, if they wish. We are building vehicles here in Pittsburgh and seeking funding to expand our operations and continue R&D on our next generation vehicle slated for release in 2013.

 

Final thoughts:
I think the biggest benefit I've had from [my] early scientific and engineering background is how to think outside the box and be creative. Sometimes things simply don't work; that's life. Those who know how to adapt their procedures or find creative ways to solve problems and fix experiments are innovators in every sense of the word and have the skills to be very successful at what they do. I never take for granted that I had great teachers, mentors, and parents that taught me the value of science, technology, and education from a young age and have helped me to achieve the success I have today.

 

• Get involved with the Intel ISEF 2012 in Pittsburgh
• Learn more about the SSP Alumni Program

 

SSP Alumna Ellie Ehrenfeld Remembers STS in 1958

“I was a tough, budding young hippie in the late ‘50s — with a long dark braid down my back, black turtle-neck sweater and jeans (I think, thankfully, I left my guitar and banjo at home!)” Ellie, shown above at STS, says, adding that she remembers, “We held a poster session in the hotel ballroom, and Vice-President Richard M. Nixon… chose to come to my poster… I fear I may have been less than gracious.”

By Caitlin Jennings, Communications Specialist, Society for Science & the Public

 

Ellie Ehrenfeld (Science Talent Search 1958) has published more than 150 papers, served as the Director of the Center for Scientific Review at the National Institutes of Health, is working with the World Health Organization to eradicate the polio virus, and has many other distinguished achievements.  Ellie is now a Scientist Emeriti and she brings her vast knowledge of biology to global public health efforts. However, like all great scientists, she had to start somewhere, and her somewhere was a high school chemistry class. 

 
“My [STS] project was very simple:  In a junior year chemistry class lab, we had used the reagent ammonium dichromate, a common oxidizing agent, whose decomposition products were described in our text book.  But I smelled ammonia, which was not supposed to be among the products.  I brought this to the attention of my wonderful, inspiring chemistry teacher, Mr. Benjamin Karp.  He suggested I work out what the reaction was that produced ammonia, and when I did, he suggested that I apply for the Westinghouse STS,” Ellie says. “I was quite surprised when I was notified that I was among the finalists, and was invited to Washington, DC.”

Ellie Ehrenfeld

“The STS award was truly a life-changing event for me,” she says, noting that the scholarship helped her go away to attend college, when she couldn’t have otherwise, and gave her the confidence to apply for a pre-college research program at Jackson Laboratories, where she made important contacts and learned valuable skills before even starting her college career. But, perhaps even more important, she notes, “My STS project provided the first educational experience ever in which I felt that I had actually discovered something new, that had not been known before.  For the first time, I did not just learn what others had already discovered, but discovered something myself.  This was a major new accomplishment for me — a skinny, young girl of immigrant parents who spoke English with an embarrassingly (to me) thick accent.  It had a major impact on my drive to do research as an undergraduate and probably even after.”

 

To the accomplished scientists of the future, who are making their own discoveries in high school chemistry classes, she advises: “Science is such an essential, important and far-reaching contributor to almost every aspect of our society — there is no end of possibilities of how it can be developed, used and applied. The important thing is to find something that you love to do, that you have some passion about, and dive in.”

 

• Read an article about the Ellie
• Lear more about SSP’s alumni program

Eleven SSP Alumni are Celebrated as 2011 Davidson Fellows

The Davidson Institute for Talent Development recently honored the 2011 Davidson Fellows, eleven of who are SSP alumni. The Fellowship awards $10,000, $25,000, and $50,000 scholarships to people under the age of 18 who have contributed a significant piece of work in the fields of Mathematics, Science, Literature, Music, Technology, and Outside the Box.   The Fellows were  honored at a reception in Washington, DC on October 5.  

 

The SSP alumni who received this prestigious honor are listed below:

 

• Arjun Aggarwal (DCYSC 2005, 2006, 2007; SSP MSP 2008; Intel ISEF 2010, 2011) 
• Matthew Bauerle (DCYSC 2005, 2006, 2007; SSP MSP 2008) 
• Marian Bechtel (Intel ISEF 2010, 2011) 
• Benjamin Clark (Intel STS 2011, Intel ISEF 2011) 
• Siddhartha Jena (Intel ISEF 2010, 2011) 
• Sunil Pai (Intel STS 2011, Intel ISEF 2010) 
• Rebecca Chen (Intel ISEF 2011) 
• Jayanth Krishnan (Intel ISEF 2010, 2011)
• Anirudh Prabhu (Intel ISEF 2011
• Shalini Ramanan (Intel ISEF 2010, 2011)
• Raja Selvakumar (Intel ISEF 2010, 2011)

 

Learn more about these alumni and the other 2011 Davidson Fellows.

SSP Alumnus and Science Fair Judge Todd Rider Gives Advice

Todd Rider in the lab

By Caitlin Jennings, Communications Specialst, Society for Science & the Public

When Todd Rider (SSP Alumnus: Science Talent Search 1986; International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) 1983, 84, 85, 86) made it to his first ISEF as a freshman, he had such a rewarding experience and was so impressed with the other projects, he rededicated his efforts to his research to make sure he could successfully compete and come back every year. “It was very influential to be able to conduct research at that young age and go from having an idea to doing literature research on something, doing experiments on it, writing it all up, and presenting it,” he says.

 

Years later, he’s still impressed with the projects he’s seen at the Massachusetts State Science Fair, where he has been judging for 15 years, and now with Broadcom MASTERS 2011, where he judged projects at a national level for the first time this Fall and really enjoyed it. “The caliber of the students is just so impressive,” Todd says, and he is also impressed by their enthusiasm for science.
What exactly makes a good science fair project though? “It’s very important, especially from my perspective as a judge, for it to be student led, student driven,” Todd says, adding that he is especially impressed with students who build their own tools. “I think that really shows much more initiative and helps the student gain a much better understanding of the science.”

 

 Todd also emphasizes the importance of original research. “It doesn’t have to be earth shattering; you don’t have to really come up with the cure for cancer or something. But I think it’s really important for students to do something that’s at least somewhat different than what people have done before,” Todd says. “It might come out of their own interests, maybe they see some sci-fi movie that features something in it and they want to try to do a much simpler version of that, or maybe it’s a student who just loves gardening and wants to do something with plants.”

 

Todd knows firsthand that somewhat simple high school research can lead to big advances down the road. He recently invented the “CANARY” (Cellular Analysis and Notification of Antigen Risks and Yields), which serves as a canary in the coal mine for pathogens by detecting bacteria. It has many possible applications, Todd says. “Ultimately, you might imagine walking into a doctor’s office and, if you’re sick, you just cough on this thing and within a minute it would tell you exactly what you have.”

 

The CANARY spurred another project when he considered the different ways in which bacteria and viruses are treated. “I wanted something that would be as broad spectrum for viruses as antibiotics are for bacteria,” he says. That’s where DRACOs (Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizers) came in, and early testing is promising.

 

Perhaps someday soon the CANARY and DRACOs will be staples in medicine.  For now, it is interesting to wonder if they would have ever come to fruition had a high school freshman in 1983 not been so inspired by the ISEF projects he saw.

• • Read about Todd’s work on CANARY and DRACO
• • Ask Todd to give a presentation in your classroom
• • Learn about the SSP Alumni Program

 

Show your Support for Science Fairs!

Voting opens today for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Business Civic Leadership Center (BCLC) Best Partnership Award category, so show your support by voting for Society for Science & the Public and Intel!

 

The Best Partnership category honors companies and charitable organizations for working together to address important social issues. The winner of this award is determined by online public voting at www.corporatecitizenshipvote.com. Voting in the 2011 competition begins today, September 19, and will continue until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on October 28. In 2010, more than 15,000 votes were cast to select the winning partnership.

 

SSP and Intel were recognized in this prestigious category of the annual Corporate Citizenship Awards program for our collaboration in the Intel Science Talent Search, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, and the SSP Fellowship.  These programs inspire and support our next generation of scientific leaders.

“A skilled and educated future workforce is crucial to the success and competitiveness of American businesses, and STEM (science, tech, engineering, and math) education is a key focus. “Intel’s partnership with the Society for Science & the Public (SSP) to encourage real-world problem-solving and analysis among students, and professional scientific development among educators, is a great asset to STEM education,” said U.S. Chamber BCLC Founder and Executive Director Stephen Jordan. “The partnership’s reach – millions of students and educators in more than 70 countries – is a testament to the strengths and expertise that these two organizations bring to bear. We congratulate Intel and SSP for being named finalists in the 2011 Best Partnership award category."

 

Vote now to show your support!

Andy Sessler: The Making of a Scientist

Andy Sessler (STS 1945)

By Caitlin Jennings, Communications Specialist, society for Science & the Public

 

Andy Sessler, Science Talent Search 1945 alumnus and award-winning theoretical physicist and humanitarian activist, has served as the director of Berkeley Lab, the President of the American Physics Association, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has also shared his knowledge by giving presentations all over the world, publishing multiple academic papers, serving on many national committees, and co-writing a coffee table book on particle accelerators: Engines of Discovery: A Century of Particle Accelerators.  

 

Andy says he had a lot of help along the way as he relied on his parents, teachers, and other members of the community to become a scientist. “It takes a village,” to raise a scientist, he says. His dad was a science teacher who let Andy use his equipment and share it with elementary school classmates. Andy also had some great public school teachers, including one, in the 5th grade, who gave him assignments in Morse code and allowed him and his friends to give fake science “broadcasts” out of a cardboard radio during class.

 

Perhaps just as important as having a supportive community, is having the will to persevere when the support isn’t there. When Andy’s teacher refused to teach calculus, he and a friend tried to learn it themselves. “Kids have to learn how to think for themselves,” he says. He remembers later working with graduate students who had stellar grades but were terrible at research. “They were great at answering questions…but [they had an] inability even to think what would be the next question we should ask, or what about this, just no imagination or creativity.” 

 

Andy says hands-on research is a good way to teach this independent creative thinking, as well as allowing students to explore their own passions.  He recalls a time his daughter wanted to do a project on tectonic plates for a biology class and he was surprised the teacher allowed an earth sciences project in a biology course.  But, he says, the teacher was more generous and wiser than he was, because that project lead his daughter to study geology in graduate school.

 

 “The ability to ask questions, see what comes next, and overcome obstacles,” is required for being a good scientist, he says.  These skills must be developed, in addition to the knowledge gained. “It’s a long road to becoming a scientist.”

 

• Read an article on Andy’s career: “Andy Sessler as Busy as Ever in his 75th Year”
• Watch a lecture by Andy: Seventy Five Years of Particle Accelerators
• Learn more about Andy’s work
• Learn about SSP’s Alumni Program

 

SSP Alumni in Popular Science

The September 2011 issue of Popular Science features innovative high school inventors, including many alumni of SSP education programs, including the Intel Science Talent Search, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, and SSP middle school competitions.

 

• ALLISON DANA BICK (Intel STS 2011)
• RYAN ERICKSON (DCYSC 2006, Intel ISEF 2010 and 2011)
• PARAM JAGGI (Intel ISEF 2010 and 2011)
• ALEXANDER GILBERT (Intel ISEF 2011, Intel STS 2011 semifinalist)
• MATTHEW FEDDERSON AND BLAKE MARGGRAFF (Intel ISEF 2011, Gordon E. Moore Award Winners)
• JAO-KE CHIN-LEE (Intel ISEF 2011)
• SARA VOLZ  (DCYSC 2007, MSP 2008, Intel ISEF 2010 and 2011)