Winners named in Bruce Museum's Phenomenon Science Innovation Fair

 

The Bruce Museum's Phenomenon Science Innovation Fair last week recognized the outstanding scientific research of ten high school students from Greenwich, CT, and Pound Ridge, NY.

Prizes went to the top three young science researchers. First prize went to Raina Jain for her project "Magnetically Induced, Visual Detection of Trace Arsenic Contaminants in Water Using Fe3O4 Photonic Crystal Structures." Her system can detect arsenic contamination at 10 parts per billion compared to existing tests that only reach 250ppb.

Since the threshold for human danger is 100ppb, this is a great advance. Second prize went to Hiba Hussain for her project "Non-Invasive, Low-cost Diagnosis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease via Smartphone Breath Analysis," an inventive and potentially life-saving use of a cell phone to catch the disease in its early stages.

The People's Choice Award went to Emily Philippides for her project "Controlled-Release Delivery of Ovarian Anticancer Paclitaxel via Vortex Ring, Donut-Shaped Hydrogel," a system has the capacity to revolutionize disease therapy. Keynote speaker William Yin, a former GHS student who currently attends Stanford University, highlighted that their determination to overcome obstacles and continue to seek solutions showed that all the participants are winners.

Image: Seated from left: Emily Philippides, Melissa Woo, Raina Jain, Hiba Hussain. Standing: Collin Marino, Rahul Subramaniam, Nicholas Liu, Verna Yin, Charlotte Hallisey, Simon Peck.

Top 3 winning young scientists, from left, Raina Jain, Hiba Hussain. Emily Philippides.