Athens, Ga. – More than 800 Georgia middle and high school students competed March 21-23 in the 65th Georgia Science and Engineering Fair at the Classic Center in downtown Athens.
Hosted by the Office of Academic Special Programs and the University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education, the fair is the state’s ultimate venue for displaying the science and engineering research of Georgia’s top middle- and high-school students.
An invitation to compete at the fair culminates a string of achievements that begins for each competitor with a classroom or laboratory research project and experiment. Meritorious projects from school and local fairs are invited to exhibit at one of the 21 regional fairs held throughout the state in January and February. The best of the regional winners are considered for advancement to the state fair.
Students competed in 17 categories, including animal sciences, behavioral and social sciences, biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology, chemistry, computer science, earth and planetary science, electrical and mechanical engineering, engineering materials and bioengineering, energy and transportation, environmental management, mathematics, medicine, microbiology, plant sciences, physics and astronomy.
“We were very impressed with both the caliber of research the students presented at the fair this year and the maturity and poise with which they conducted their interviews,” said Laura Brewer, fair co-director.
Over 300 science professionals from throughout the state judged the projects March 22. Students competed for thousands of dollars in awards, internships and prizes, including over 100 awards that honor students for research in particular fields.
The top prize, the Georgia Science and Engineering Fair Pinnacle Award went to Anand Srinivasan of Roswell High School for “SKYNET: Modeling Spatiotemporal Systems with Recurrent Neural Net.”
Four students were selected to advance to the international competition, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, which will be held May 12-17 in Phoenix, Ariz. They are Julia Abelsky of North Springs High School for “Cylindrically Confined Diblock Copolymers and Gold Nanocomposites,” Sonam Brahmbhatt of Rockdale Magnet School for “Hypoxia Induced Effects On Chondrocyte Phenotype,” Catherine Schlueter of Mountain View High School for
“Can Native Bees Replace Honeybees in Commercial Apple Production,” and Pinnacle Award winner Srinivasan.
Also selected to attend the international fair are Larry Jacobs and Chelse-Amoy Steele of Rockdale Magnet School, for their project “Discovering the Behavior of the Pancreas in an Obese Mouse Model.” Jacobs and Steele are the recipients of the Merial Biological ISEF Trip Observer Award, which honors a ninth- or 10th-grade student who displays the desire, academic potential and personality to attend ISEF as a participant in following years.
The Grand Awards for Top Ten State Recognition went to Julia Abelsky, Sonam Brahmbhatt, Angelina Choi, Grade Devine, Alexandra Melehan, Chuanbo Pan, Sergio Parra, Catherine Schlueter, Anand Srinivasan and Justin Williams.
Two graduating high school seniors were selected to represent Georgia at the month-long 2013 National Youth Science Camp held in June in West Virginia. They are Julia Abelsky of North
Springs High School and Natalie Rakoski of Villa Rica High School.
The UGA Charter Scholarship Award went to Malcolm Barnard of Johns Creek High School for Utilizing an Algal Filter to Improve Water Quality and Aqib Momin of Rockdale Magnet School for Computational Models of Stochastic Recurrent ANN’s.
The 67th Georgia Science and Engineering Fair will be held March 27-29, 2014.
For year-round information on the fair, see http://www.georgiacenter.uga.edu/gsef or email gsef@georgiacenter.uga.edu.
University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education
A unit of the University of Georgia’s Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach, the Georgia Center for Continuing Education provides innovative lifelong learning opportunities through its continuing education programs, meeting the training and professional development needs of individuals, businesses and organizations in Georgia and beyond. For more information see http://www.georgiacenter.uga.edu/.
