University of Notre Dame
Department of Physics

Siemens Competition Regional Finalists

Seniors, Kristen Anderson of Bremen High School and Mengwen Zhang of Penn High School

Their research, titled "Performance of Scintillating and Waveshifting Fibers for Particle Detectors," was done at the University of Notre Dame's QuarkNet Center during the summer of 2006 under the direction of Dr. Dan Karmgard, Mark Vigneault, and teacher Mark Kirzeder. Anderson is a QuarkNet-Ludlum Measurements, Inc. Fellow, while Zhang is a QuarkNet-Radiology, Inc. Fellow. They made the Regional Finalist round of the top 30 teams in the nation, which earned them to a trip to MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they presented a poster and talked. While they did not move on to the National Competition, they each received a $1000 scholarship, a medal and a beautiful engraved trophy. For details on the Siemens Competition
see: http://www.siemens-foundation.org/competition/

"Science is not formal logic: it needs the free play of the mind in as great a degree as any other creative art. It is true that this is a gift which can hardly be taught, but its growth can be encouraged in those who already posses it."
-- Max Born (1882-1970)

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