Teen receives $100,000 science scholarship from Intel


Recommended Posts

OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma (AP) -- A 17-year-old girl won a scholarship worth $100,000 for building an inexpensive yet accurate spectrograph that identifies the "fingerprints" of different molecules.

Mary Masterman, a senior at Westmoore High School in Oklahoma City, was named the winner Tuesday of the annual Intel Science Talent Search.

More than 1,700 high school seniors across the nation entered the contest, which is in its 66th year.

Spectrographs, which measure wave lengths, are used in research such as astronomy and medicine and in industry. For example, they can be used as a sensing device to look for explosives or drugs or to help determine how old an art work is through its pigments.

They can cost as much as $100,000, but Masterman's invention -- made of lenses, a laser, aluminum tubing and a camera -- cost less than $1,000, Intel said.

Masterman received the honor from Intel Corp. Chairman Craig Barrett during a banquet Tuesday night in Washington.

"It was a complete surprise," Masterman said. "I wasn't expecting it."

The 40 finalists spent the last week in Washington, where they exhibited their projects at the National Institute of Science and met government officials including Vice President Dick Cheney and U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.

Masterman said she has been interested in science "ever since I was little. I can't remember ever not being interested." She credits her parents with encouraging her.

She said she has not decided where she will attend college but would eventually like to become a physicist or chemist.

Among the former winners of the competition's top award are six Nobel Laureates, three National Medal of Science winners, 10 MacArthur Foundation Fellows and two Fields Medalists.

"You're not only dealing with the top young person in the science field in the country in Mary, but you're dealing with 40 finalists who are doing breaking-edge research in total," said Brenda Musilli, Intel's director of education. "It's really something that's hard to imagine, how a young person like Mary could even achieve this level of capability at such a young age."

source

Congrats to her! :cool:

However - This thread is worthless without pics!

(there... someone had to say it :whistle: )

:rolleyes: it's amazing how i didn't care what she looked like but was actually just happy reading the article. geess.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Good, because the nonstop chattering from the voices in her head made me quit the second game.
    • This new cabinet design lets you run AMD, Intel, and Nvidia PCs inside one case by Sayan Sen At Computex 2026 earlier this month, AMD announced a couple of new X3D processors for both sockets AM4 and AM5 as it confirmed the support extension of the latter till 2029. And although Intel didn't unveil any new desktop chips, the company's Core Ultra 200S Plus series is relatively new too. Let's say though that you want the best of both worlds simultaneously, and instead of running two different systems, you can have both running together side-by-side, or rather on top of one another. That's exactly what Thermaltake's CAPO X dual system is made for doing. While it's not exactly mandatory to run AMD with Intel, or vice versa, you get the idea. As you can see in the render above, it is essentially like a double-decker PC case that is capable of holding two microATX (mATX) motherboards. Even running just one discrete graphics card in a PC can get toasty, so you may be wondering how well the cooling is designed on the CAPO X, Thermaltake has confirmed, as is evident from the marketing promo image above, that the case supports up to two 360 mm AIO liquid coolers. 420mm is not supported. In total there is room for 13 120mm case fans. In terms of I/O (input/output) options for the two systems, there are naturally two places for those ports, one at the top and one at the very bottom of the chassis in the front panel. In terms of use cases, there are many possibilities. Thermaltake itself, for example, highlights how one system can be your main PC while the other could be the AI agent PC. Another example given is how it can be used to stream and game simultaneously with dedicated systems instead of hogging one with the entire load. Nothing regarding pricing or availability was said. Source: Thermaltake (YouTube, X)
    • There might be some passive design improvements (cooling, etc), but I doubt they'd change the core performance spec of the hardware mid-generation when they've already got a new console in development.
    • State of Decay 3 is out in 2027, reveals Plague Nests with new co-op gameplay trailer by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe A few months ago, Undead Labs broke its silence about the third entry in the State of Decay series since its announcement in 2020. Today, the studio had a brand-new trailer to reveal at the Xbox Games Showcase, finally giving players a look at the Unreal Engine 5-powered title. A broad 2027 release window is now attached to State of Decay 3 too. The studio confirmed that every scene seen in the gameplay trailer (except for the studio logo) released today is from the game with no cinematic footage. "The quality bar of the moment-to-moment experience is higher than anything we’ve achieved in Undead Labs’ history," says the studio. "State of Decay 3 is being built in Unreal Engine 5, and we’re creating better quality versions of what makes our game the survival sandbox it is, and the combat experience is really, really important to us, and I think you can see it coming through in this trailer." One new aspect of this upcoming entry is the Plague Nests. These are supposed to be dynamic, dungeon‑like enemy hubs with varied “personas” that change tactics each time one appears on a map. These areas will have the best loot in the game for players brave enough to tackle them. The combat system is being overhauled too, letting players do quick and power attacks depending on the situation. This isn't just on the player's side though, as zombies themselves now have multiple new types of behaviors depending on how fresh or decayed they are. "All of these play very differently, especially as you start getting outnumbered or when you’re making noise and running around and trying to save your rear end or the rear end of your friend next to you," adds the developer. Of course, settlement building and community management are massive parts of this third entry too. These are being further expanded with the cooperative focus, giving players much more freedom for playing together than in State of Decay 2. Players will even be able to split up and build settlements in different areas of the same map with different goals. Undead Labs confirmed that playtests are already ongoing for the title, and interested players can sign up to participate by heading over here once more slots open up ahead of the full release. State of Decay 3 is coming out on PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Game Pass sometime in 2027.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Proficient
      Eric Biran went up a rank
      Proficient
    • Dedicated
      Conjor earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • Week One Done
      Windows Guy earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Dedicated
      Mark Spruce earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • Collaborator
      conkir earned a badge
      Collaborator
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      492
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      247
    3. 3
      Steven P.
      72
    4. 4
      +Edouard
      68
    5. 5
      ATLien_0
      67
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!