Samantha Marquez Named Best of Category at Intel ISEF

The MathScience Innovation Center is proud to announce that Samantha Marquez , a 9th grade student at Maggie Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, was selected as the “Best of Category” winner at the 2011 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Engineering: Materials and Bioengineering. Samantha won the opportunity to compete at the Intel ISEF at this year's Metro Richmond Science Fair (MRSF), which was hosted by the MathScience Innovation Center and held in March at Godwin High School.

The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair is the largest high school science research competition in the world. Sixty-five countries were represented at this year's fair with over 1200 projects competing in 17 categories.

Samantha was one of two First Place winners in her category. The Intel ISEF chooses multiple winners for fourth through second place, and may select up to 3 first place winners depending on the number of participants. The Best of Category project is chosen from among those first place winners.

For her efforts, Samantha will receive $3000 in cash as the award for First Place. She will receive a $5000 scholarship for her selection as Best of Category.  In addition, the names of the first and second place category award winners are being submitted to the International Astronomical Union, which means that minor planets will be named after Samantha and the other winners!!

Samantha's project, Celloidosomes: A Journey toward the Bioengineering of Artificial Micro-Glands and Micro-Bioreactors, has been a 2-year effort. She is a resident of Chesterfield County and competed at the 2010 Metro Richmond Science Fair as a student at Robious Middle School. Samantha completed some of this year's lab work at Texas A & M University, but most of it was conducted at Harvard University. She plans to continue her research at Harvard and also at Georgia Tech this summer.