Summer for most high school students is a time of freedom or toil at a minimum-wage job. For Felicia Yen, the past two summers have been spent among the brightest U.S. scientists researching gene therapy and breast cancer.
Her summer research at the University of California in San Francisco has produced a diagnostic test for breast cancer. She has also studied the use of genetically modified adenovirus with heat-shock drugs to selectively kill cancer cells.
But though 17-year-old Felicia of Dix Hills, N.Y., occasionally receives curious reactions from college students on campus and researchers in the laboratories, she does not view working on a cure for cancer at a young age to be unusual.
"I'm just learning a little bit early. I don't see it as very unique per se," Felicia said.
Beginning this week, however, Felicia will not be alone as a teen-age scientist. She will join 39 other students for one week in the Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS) as they compete for prizes of more than $1 million in scholarships and cash.
The competition is the oldest U.S. high school science competition in what is called the "junior Nobel Prize." The title is a fair predictor of the talent involved: award winners include three National Medal of Science winner, 10 MacArthur Foundation Fellows, two Fields medalists and five Nobel Prize laureates.
The most recent competition alumnus honored with a Nobel Prize was Ronald Hoffman, who won the Nobel for chemistry in 1981.
No average science fair
The Intel Foundation Corporation and Intel Foundation grant more than $1 million toward the awards.
The 40 finalists receive a trip to Washington from March 11 to 16 and a new laptop computer. Throughout the week, the students are tested on their wide knowledge of science and math with hypothetical questions in all areas of the fields.
The winner is announced at a reception March 16.
Barbara Carman, Intel science talent search program manager, said she is surprised each year by the accomplishments of the young proteges. "I think what I did when I was 17 and we are constantly surprised by these students and realize we wasted our youth," Carman said.
Carman said the competition is unique because it judges the student on not only their projects but also their wide knowledge of science and math and how to apply them.
The competition's winner receives a $100,000 four-year scholarship. The award for the second to 10th place are scholarships that range from $75,000 scholarship to $5,000.
Intel began sponsoring the program in 1998, taking over from the Westinghouse Foundation, which created the program in 1942 to encourage science education.
While a science competition at some high schools may include the standard diagram of the solar system, Felicia's group's projects include radio detection of meteors, repairing a damaged heart by cell fusion, an evaluation of the 1968 El Nino and a study of the cognitive development in toddlers using pretend play.
Big pool of applicants
The application process for the competition begins in November with an essay on the student's project. The applicants were reduced to 300 students and then to the 40 finalists heading to Washington.
This year a record number of 1,652 students applied.
Picking the 40 finalists is based solely on the student's project. But choosing the winners from those is judged on the project and the student's overall knowledge of math and science, determined this week through interviews.
Though the finalists are bright in math and science they are not shy in other fields.
The students, high school seniors from 14 states and Washington, D.C., include an acclaimed Indian dancer, a published poet, a storytelling champion, a competitive climber and an aspiring Olympic athlete. Eighty percent play a musical instrument, 70 percent are fluent in another language other than English and 47 percent volunteer in their community.
Fellow finalist 18-year-old Lisa Glukhovsky from New Milford, Conn., has been competing in science competitions for years.
Her love of astronomy prompted her project, which is a study of a method of determining the distance to a near-Earth asteroid. She took high-resolution images of the asteroid from one European and one U.S. observatory and, using a computer spreadsheet she created, she calculated the distance to the asteroid. Her distances differed by less than 1 percent of NASA's predictions.
Carmen said Intel hopes students like Felicia and Lisa continue their science endeavors to contribute to the science workforce. "The decline in the production of technically skilled workers is an area of concern for Intel and our nation," Craig Barrett, Intel chief executive officer, said.
