Young Scientists Rake In Honors
By JOHN FLECK Journal Staff Writer
Los Alamos High School junior Caroline Wurden’s success in making contained lightning without blowing up her garage netted the 16- year-old a cool $8,000 in prizes Friday at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
Wurden was one of eight New Mexico teenagers who brought home prizes this week at the prestigious annual event, held this year in Atlanta.
“I’m really happy,” a slightly breathless and still excited Wurden said in a telephone interview Friday afternoon after the awards announcement.
Wurden created ball lightning in her Los Alamos garage, wowing the judges at the event, which drew 1,550 students from around the world.
She did it, she explained, without the sort of collateral damage one might fear. “I didn’t blow up the garage,” she said in a recent interview. “Not yet, anyway.”
Wurden won the $5,000 Best of Category award in Physics and Astronomy, and a $3,000 first-place Grand Award in the same category.
New Mexico’s other top winner was Erika DeBenedictis, a 16-year- old sophomore at St. Pius X High School in Albuquerque.
“I’ve been meeting people from all over the world, and it’s just been amazing,” she said in a telephone interview.
DeBenedictis wrote computer software to calculate the optimum orbit for a spacecraft trying to get to another planet. She won $1,000 from the IEEE Computer Society, $3,000 from the United States Air Force, $150 from the Patent and Trademark Office Society and a $1,000 third place Grand Award in Computer Science.
Other New Mexico winners:
Adam Akkad, 16, Albuquerque Academy: fourthplace Grand Award, cellular and molecular biology, $500.
James Clark, 15, Mayfield High, Las Cruces: fourth-place Grand Award, engineering, $500.
Rachel Lopez, 16, Rio Rancho High: first place, American Indian Science and Engineering Society, $1,000.
Sean Abrahamson, 14, Piedra Vista High, Farmington: $3,000, Air Force.
Hang Richard Zou, 18, Albuquerque Academy: second-place Grand Award, medicine and health sciences, $1,500.
Rebecca Alexander, 17, Grants High: first place, American Society of Pharmacognosy, $500; American Society for Microbiology, $250.
(c) 2008 Albuquerque Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.