Intel International Science and Engineering Fair

The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) was held May 7-13, 2006 at the Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis Convention Center. Almost 1,500 students from 47 countries competed at the 57th ISEF. To compete in Intel ISEF, students compete with more than 65,000 students at more than 500 regional Intel ISEF affiliated science fairs around the world. Each affiliated fair may select 2 individual projects and 1 team project to travel to the Intel ISEF to compete in 15 different categories: Behavioral and Social Sciences, Biochemistry, Botany, Chemistry, Computer Science, Earth Science, Engineering, Environmental Science, Mathematics, Medicine & Health, Microbiology, Physics, Space Science, Team Projects, and Zoology.

APA serves as a Special Awards Organization by granting six awards to the best projects in the psychological sciences. During two days of intense judging, a panel of volunteer psychologist judges selected the top six finishers from all science projects related to psychology. The effort is funded and organized through the Education Directorate.

The following awards were given by APA for the best projects in the psychological sciences. All winners receive a certificate and a one-year student membership to APA.

First Award of $1000: Riana Juhn Betzler, The Fox Lane High School, Bedford, NY. Word Segmentation in Language Acquisition: Assessing Ambiguities Between Word Offsets and Transitional Probabilities.

Second Award of $500: Harpreet Kaur Sangha, West Valley High School, Fairbanks, AK. The Role of Serotonin Pathways in Mouse Compulsive-like Behavior: Implications for the Study of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

Third Award of $250: Maggie Delano, Ossining High School, Ossining, NY. Attention in the Brain: A Study of Cognitive Control Using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

Honorable Mention Award: Maya Nina Wolpert, Hathaway Brown School, Shaker Heights, OH. Atypical Visual Behaviors as Early Indicators of Autism in Children.

Honorable Mention Award: Mary Martha Douglas, Alison W. Liu, Manhasset High School, Manhasset, NY. The Effects of CNS Stimulants and SSRIs on the Formation of Conditioned Long Term Memory and Learned Behaviors in Sleep Deprived Wildtype Drosophilia melanogaster

Honorable Mention Award: Caroline Elizabeth Pietsch, Ossining High School, Ossining, NY. A Novel Approach to the Automatic Recognition of Emotions in Natural Speech.