Science has long been a field dominated heavily by men, so seeing the first Google Science Fair award its highest honors to three young women with an interest in the workings of biology gave me a serious case of warm fuzzies. The top three awards, one in each age group, and an overall Grand Prize went to girls. That’s not nothing, as they say. The winners 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.
Bose was awarded the Grand Prize as well; her research has strong implications for the future of treatment technology for cancer patients. According to the judges panel, “the unifying elements of all three young women were their intellectual curiosity, their tenaciousness and their ambition to use science to find solutions to big problems.” They each took home prizes from Google, NatGeo, LEGO and CERN.