I’ve written about the winner of the National Science Fair many times.  It’s no longer the Westinghouse, not even Intel.  Nope. Now, it’s the Regeneron Science Talent Search, as it has been since 2017.   (The firm that donates the money [in this case, $100  million over a decade] gets to name it after itself.  Kind of like how many a college building gets named.)

And, this year, the winner is an Hispanic woman who attended the local Alexandria high school- Alexandria High School (formerly known as TC Williams)!  (Yes, Ana Humphrey is the first Hispanic to win the science talent search in some 2 decades.)  Her project bested the other 2000+ entries.  And, awarded her $ 250K in prize money.

What did Ana develop?   A mathematical model that can discern where planets exist outside of our own solar system (called the exoplanets).  These planets are those that the Kepler Science Telescope has not discerned.  And, her project may even help us better understand how planets get formed.

Her project is centered on a mathematical model to determine the possible locations of exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system.

And, how does Ms. Humphrey’s model work?  Our current theory says that new planets form by creating a “dynamically packed system’.  Ms. Humphrey’s model seeks out “unpacked” spaces.  Her method discerns how a star’s brightness decreases when a passing body blocks it’s light.  Sounds simple, right?  Except…

Some planets never pass in front of a star (from our viewpoint) and others may be so small that they don’t block enough light to be detected.  That’s why a mathematical model is needed- and Ms. Humphrey detailed 96 key regions in space to search, hoping to find some 560 missing planets.

This wasn’t Ms.Humphrey’s first big win, either.  In 2014, she was a national finalist in the Discovery 3M Young Scientist Challenge.  2 years later, she won the Virginia state Water Prize  (2016 US Stockholm Junior Water Prize- and a national finalist), the Northern Virginia Science Fair, and the Frances and Sydney Lewis Environmental Science Scholarship (Virginia Environmental Endowment).

By the way, Northern Virginia did very well in this year’s competition. Two other kids- Adam Ardeishar who attends the superschool Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (in a portion of Fairfax County that is allowed to use an Alexandria address) and Carolyn Beaumont from the Potomac School (a private institution in McLean) placed as finalists.

Ardeishar was third overall ($ 150K in prize money, solving another math problem solution- extreme value theory and the “coupon collector problem” and Beaumont placed fifth ($90K in prize money, her project determined how water affects magma viscosity, a key factor in volcanic eruptions).  All of which is a nice change- since over the past 10 years, only 4 students from NoVa placed as finalists and they were all from the Thomas Jefferson superschool.).

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