STEM Essay Contest Winners Announced By AAUW McLean Area Branch

The winners of the 2020 STEM Essay Contest sponsored by the McLean Area Branch of AAUW (American Association of University Women) have been selected and notified. The contest was open to 7th and 8th grade students (girls and boys) at local public and private schools. The students were asked to discover and publicize a woman who was not recognized in her lifetime and who made a difference in Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics, discussing why the student selected the woman and what the impact of her STEM contribution was.

The winners of the contest are:
1st Place: Anna Wisniewski, Cooper Middle School (7th Grade)
2nd Place: Laura Zhang, Longfellow Middle School (8th Grade)
Honorable Mention: Katharine Kanner-Bitetti, The Potomac School (8th Grade)
Honorable Mention: Fay Moran, Cooper Middle School (7th Grade)

The students received Certificates of Recognition and checks by mail and will be invited to an AAUW Branch event at a later time so that the 1st Place winner, Anna Wisniewski, can read her essay on Hedy Lamarr, film actress and a pioneer in frequency-hopping technology that made spread-spectrum systems possible.
Other women who were the subjects of the winning essays are Lise Meitner, a researcher who played a critical role in the discovery of nuclear fission; Arda Green, a biochemist who was part of the team that isolated serotonin; and Florence Nightingale, a nurse who is less known for her revolutionary use of statistics to prevent deaths by analyzing army hospital records.

Fourteen volunteers from the McLean Area Branch served as judges: Pam Bacher, Marie Briones-Jones, Marlene Chivavibul, Dorothy Hassan, Myrtle Hendricks-Corrales, Sherry Joslin, Mary Lou Melley, Nina McVeigh, Tom McVeigh, Judy Page, Caroline Pickens, Betsy Schroeder, Barbara Sipe, and Adarsh Trehan.

For more information on the McLean Area Branch, visit the branch website at http://mclean-va.aauw.net.