Girl Power at the Google Science Fair

Yesterday, Google headquarters in Silicon Valley hosted fifteen Google Science Fair finalists. More than 1,000 local attendees plus Google workers attended the event and walked along the exhibit halls.

The top three winners are all girls this year, and here they are:

• Lauren Hodge in the 13-14 age group. Lauren studied the effect of different marinades on the level of potentially harmful carcinogens in grilled chicken.
• Naomi Shah in the 15-16 age group. Naomi endeavored to prove that making changes to indoor environments that improve indoor air quality can reduce people’s reliance on asthma medications.
• Shree Bose in the 17-18 age group. Shree discovered a way to improve ovarian cancer treatment for patients when they have built up a resistance to certain chemotherapy drugs.

According to the judges, the girls were all intellectually curious, tenacious, and determined to use science to solve big problems through simple solutions that the general public can do. Each girl won a scholarship and a fantastic-looking Lego statue. Shree received a $50,000 scholarship, a trip to the Galápagos Islands with a National Geographic Explorer and an internship at CERN. Naomi and Lauren each received $25,000 scholarships and internships at Google and Lego. All three get a lifetime digital subscriptions to Scientific American.

You can watch the girls' science fair submission on Google. Also, consider checking out the Google Students blog.

Sources: Google Science Fair, Google daily blog