Outstanding scientific achievements by young Taiwan students at 2014 Intel ISEF in Los Angeles -Ministry of Education Republic of China (Taiwan)

Outstanding scientific achievements by young Taiwan students at 2014 Intel ISEF in Los Angeles

Date: 2014-05-19

Outstanding scientific achievements by young Taiwan students at 2014 Intel ISEF in Los Angeles

The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF), a program of Society for Science & the Public, is the world's largest international pre-college science competition. This year it was held in Los Angeles between May 11 and May16. More than 1,700 students in grades 9-12 from 70 countries were selected to compete in this year’s fair. Taiwan sent a delegation of 12 senior high school students to display their independent research, accompanied by 4 professors. As well as looking after these young participants and providing advice and guidance, the professors were also invited to be Intel ISEF Special Award Judges.

Six of these young students received a total of ten separate awards for their outstanding performance: 2 Intel ISEF Best of Category Awards, 5 Grand Awards, and 3 Special Awards.
Yi-Hsuan Huang from Taipei Municipal Chien-Kuo Senior High School received a Dudley R. Herschbach SIYSS Award, an Intel ISEF Best of Category Award, a First Place Award in the Plant Science category, and a Special Award provided by Monsanto Company, all for his presentation on Mechanistic Characterization of a Transcription Factor bZIP16 in Regulating Arabidopsis Flowering Pathways. He also won a SIYSS Award which provides an all-expenses-paid trip to attend the Stockholm International Youth Science Seminar (SIYSS). This allows him to attend the Nobel Prize ceremonies in Stockholm, Nobel lectures and press conferences, and visit various scientific institutes.
Another outstanding winner was Yu-Hsin Chen from Taipei First Girls High School. Her research project Increase in Tropical Cyclone Intensity and Ocean Subsurface Warming in the Western North Pacific Ocean received four awards: a European Union Contest for Young Scientists Award, an Intel ISEF Best of Category Award, a First Award in the Earth & Planetary Science category, and a Special Award provided by the American Meteorological Society. She won an all-expenses-paid trip to attend the European Union Contest for Young Scientists. This is held in a different city each year.
Intel presented both of these Best of Category Winners with a $5,000 award. Their schools will also receive a $1,000 grant and receive Intel ISEF Affiliated Fair affiliation.

Upon receiving news of these exciting announcements, Dr. Chiang Wei-Ling, Minister of Education immediately sent a congratulatory message to the delegation and these 6 winners. It was delivered by Bruce J. D. Linghu, Director-General of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Los Angeles.

Before departing to return to Taiwan, the students had an opportunity to visit Caltech, UCLA, and other scientific institutes. The visits are designed to nurture their scientific knowledge and curiosity and encourage them to set themselves even higher goals for a future academic or research career.