David Lawrence Farmer, this year's winner of the Deseret News/KSL Sterling Scholar award in science, was one of 300 students throughout the country to study in a special federal program.
The son of Larry C. and Katherine J. Farmer, Ogden, he was among 54 top high school students who studied materials science in June at the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. Altogether, about 300 students were selected for the program, going to six DOE national laboratories across the nation.David Farmer will attend Brigham Young University in the fall. "I'm thinking of majoring in biochemistry," he said.
In the past, he was involved in the Hughes Biological Summer Research Program at the University of Utah. He has expressed an interest in becoming a cancer and AIDS researcher.
Farmer has completed a project involving the action of an enzyme called malic in different solutions. He was a Westinghouse Science Talent Search finalist this year, and he participated in the Electron Microscope Lab at BYU.
He organized the science Olympiad at Orem High School and was president of the school's Science Club and Political Awareness Club, and vice president of the Key Club.