CERN hosted the visit of thirteen pre-college students who won
‘Best of Category’ awards at the Intel International Science and
Engineering Fair (ISEF) this spring in Reno, USA. The young
students spent four days at CERN and visited the Large Hadron
Collider (LHC) facility, the world's largest particle
accelerator and most complex machine ever built. They enjoyed
presentations from various prominent scientists whose research
is predicted to unearth evidence of new fundamental particles
that will provide better insight in the fundamental laws of
nature and the origins of our Universe. The students were
particularly impressed to go 100 m underground to visit the LHC
tunnel, a 27 km ring of superconducting magnets that will be
chilled later this year to a temperature of just 1.9 degrees
above absolute zero (-271.3°C), colder than outer space and
actually the coolest place in the Universe.
The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel
ISEF), the world's largest international pre-college science
competition, annually provides a forum for more than 1,500 high
school students from over 50 countries to showcase their
independent research. The Intel ISEF organizer, ‘Society for
Science & the Public’, partners with Intel -along with dozens of
other corporate, academic, government and science-focused
sponsors. The partners provide support and awards each year. The
Intel ISEF encourages students to tackle challenging scientific
questions, using authentic research practices to create
solutions to the problems of tomorrow. In fact, despite their
young age, the 13
students were already well-acquainted with science.
Ronit Abramson won the Best of ‘Cellular and Molecular Biology’
Category award for her project focusing on the implications for
novel transformation and nanotechnology techniques on cell wall
formation from marine diatom protoplasts. In Physical Sciences,
Erika DeBenedictis and Duanni Huang won for their novel approach
to identifying asteroids using image processing of existing
data. Marley Iredale won in Earth and Planetary Science for her
project on evaluating tsunami risks in Discovery Bay,
Washington. In Environmental Management, Eliza McNitt won for
her analysis of the Imidacloprid’s role in Colony Collapse
Disorder. I-Ching Tseng won in Microbiology for her research on
a Styrofoam-decomposing bacterium from mealworms.
In Energy and Transportation, Ryan Alexander won for his
analysis of the effectiveness of an oscillating wind energy
generator. Mark Chonofsky won in Plant Sciences for his research
on the genes of Taxacea, from which the cancer drug Taxol is
derived. In Computer Science, Kevin Ellis won for his
development of System S, an extension to the lambda calculus for
describing state in functional languages. Alexander Kendrick won
in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering for his development of
an underground radio that can be used for cave and mine rescues,
radiolocation, underground imaging, detection of coal and
petroleum, and for monitoring an underground climate. In
Medecine and Health, Ashoka Rajendra won for his research on
down-regulation of hTERT sensitizes chemotherapeutic effects of
Docetaxel in human prostate cancer cells. Scott Skirlo won in
Materials and Bioengineering for his project on the degradation
of the Two-way effect in Nickel Titanium, a shape memory alloy,
over several thousand thermal cycles under extreme hot and cold
conditions. In Physics and Astronomy, Nilesh Tripuraneni won for
his research on a relativistic generalisation of the Navier-Stokes
equations to quark-gluon plasmas. Thomas H. Osburg, Director
Europe – Corporate Affairs
for Intel Corp., who was present at CERN to meet the students,
and to discuss Education activities with Rolf Landua, Head of
CERN Education Department, and CERN openlab Management.
Prior to their visit, the students already had a first contact
with CERN in the person of Jim Virdee, particle physicist and
professor of physics at Imperial College, London, and scientific
associate at the Physics Department, CERN, who attended the
Intel ISEF this year and gave the keynote speech at its Grand
Opening Ceremony.
Wolfgang von Rüden, Head of CERN openlab, accompanied the
students during their stay at CERN
and stressed the strong partnership Intel and CERN built over
the years.
Since the start of CERN openlab in January 2003, Intel and CERN
have not only been collaborating on scientific projects but also
on educational activities.
Every year, young IT students participate in the CERN openlab
Summer Student Programme to work on the joint projects and
attend lectures given by CERN experts and CERN openlab partners.
Workshops on advanced topics are also jointly organised in order
to disseminate the knowledge created through these projects.
Further details about the
visit programme, the students and their projects are
available on the following
websites:
Inspired by
Education website,
Intel website
and the Society
for Science & the Public website. A
press release is available and Intel also published news on
Facebook and the
Inspired by Education website.
CMS Times,
CERN Bulletin,
Los Alamos Monitor and
ITnewsbite covered the visit. An article will also be
published in the next CNL issue.
Photo by Michael Hoch. Intel ISEF students visit the CMS cavern
with Jim Virdee and Wolfgang von Rüden.
