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$500K for America's Next Top Minds
Prestigious science competition rewards high school whiz kids.
Dec. 9, 2008— -- In second grade, when other boys might have begged their parents for more time with the television or the latest video game, Wen Chyan of Denton, Tex., once asked his parents for four boxes of baking soda.
Why? "I think I wanted to try to make an acid-based bomb," Chyan cheekily told ABCNews.com.
The son of scientists, Chyan recalled that some of the first demonstrations his father conducted for him involved acid-based reactions.
But from a curious youngster impressed by flashy test-tube "explosions," Chyan has become a decorated scientist in his own right.
On Monday, Chyan, 17, a senior at the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science in Denton, Tex., won the top $100,000 prize in the prestigious Siemens Science Competition in Math, Science and Technology. Established in 1998 by the Siemens Foundation, an education nonprofit supported by the multinational technology and electronics company, the Siemens Competition recognizes groundbreaking research conducted by high school students.
This year, the foundation awarded a total of $500,000 to 18 finalists from around the country for research that ranged from preventing infections to uncovering new chemotherapeutics to optimizing the performance of multi-core processors.
"The answers to the tough questions in science -- in the medical field, in the transportation field, in the energy field -- [are] going to be solved by science that's going on right now," said James Whaley, president of the Siemens Foundation.
"We want to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers and mathematicians so they go on and solve those problems. And the way to do that is to do something like this. Celebrate their achievement, tell the world about it, so that other kids get involved," he said.
Chyan's winning research, conducted with his mentor Richard Timmons, a chemistry professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, involved the development of an anti-microbial coating that would kill bacteria in devices, such as catheters and breathing tubes.
