WASHINGTON — A 16-year-old Florida girl who found a new way to treat infections won top honors Tuesday in the Intel Science Talent Search, one of the nation's most prestigious competitions for young scientists.
Jamie Rubin, a senior at Canterbury School in Fort Myers, Fla., identified molecules that could be used to attack potentially serious infections caused by a yeast fungus. Rubin drew inspiration from her volunteer work at a hospice center, where many patients suffer from such infections.
Rubin will receive a $100,000 college scholarship. She hopes to study at Harvard University.
Ten of 40 finalists won scholarships worth at least $20,000 as the six-day event culminated with a black-tie banquet. The remaining 30 students won $5,000 scholarships, and all finalists received laptop computers.
Second place and a $75,000 scholarship went to Tianhui "Michael" Li, 18, of Oregon Episcopal School in Portland. Li studied a new method of controlling nuclear fusion.
Anatoly Preygel, 17, of Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Md., won third place and a $50,000 scholarship. Preygel studied knot theory, an area of math that examines closed curves in three-dimensional space.
The other winners:
Peter Pawlowski, 17, of Troy High School in Fullerton, Calif., $25,000.
Naveen Sinha, 18, of Los Alamos High School in Los Alamos, N.M., $25,000.
Lester Mackey, 18, of Half Hollow Hills High School West in Dix Hills, N.Y., $25,000.
Carolyn Tewksbury, 17, of Clinton Senior High School in Clinton, N.Y., $20,000.
Yi-Chen Zhang, 17, of The Bronx High School of Science in New York City, $20,000.
Anna Gekker, 17, of Brooklyn Technical High School in New York City, $20,000.
Emma Schmidgall, 17, of Robbinsdale Cooper High School in New Hope, Minn., $20,000.
On the Net: Intel Science Talent Search: www.sciserv.org/sts/