Baylor student Darby Schumacher wins second place at national science competition.
After winning the 2013 Tennessee Junior Academy of Sciences (TJAS) competition that took place at Belmont University in April, Baylor School junior Darby Schumacher won second place in the Environmental Science category last weekend at the 51st annual National Junior Science & Humanities Symposium (JSHS) in Dayton, Oh.
Her research paper, "A Filter Today Keeps Pollutants Away: A Study of Nanofiber Based Stormwater Filtration,” will be published in the Handbook and Proceedings of the Tennessee Junior Academy of Science, and she will be inducted into the American Junior Academy of Science, the national honor society recognizing America's premier high school students for outstanding scientific research.
Because she had already flown home to Chattanooga on Saturday to take the SAT, Ms.
Schumacher missed the awards ceremony, but says she is thrilled to have won second place in the nation and added that she received a medal from the Department of Defense, a certificate signed by the Secretary of the Army, Navy, and Air Force and an $8,000 college scholarship to the school of her choice.
For a little more than a year she has been quietly accumulating an impressive list of science awards with the same project that earned her the TJAS grand prize. At the 2012 Chattanooga Regional Science & Engineering Fair, she claimed first place in the Environmental Management category and $300 in scholarships, as well as the Army Environmental Science Award, Navy Research Award, Association of Women Geoscientists Award, Ricoh Sustainable Development Award, Water Environment Federation Award, and the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute Award. She was also the 2012 Tennessee state winner of the Stockholm Junior Water Prize (SJWP) competition, earning a trip to Boston to compete in the U.S. SJWP competition last summer.
Also in 2012, Ms. Schumacher won a fourth place medal in the Tennessee Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS) and a trip to Washington D.C. for the National JSHS competition. And when Ms. Schumacher returned to the Chattanooga Regional Science & Engineering Fair in March 2013, she earned Second Grand Prize, which included a $300 scholarship and a trip to Phoenix later this month to compete at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the world's largest high school science fair, with competitors from approximately 70 countries. She also earned third place in the Environmental Management category and a $100 scholarship plus a $600 UTC Scholarship Award.
The 2013 International Sustainable World (Energy, Engineering, Environment) Project Olympiad (ISWEEEP) has selected Ms. Schumacher as a world finalist, earning a trip to Houston, Texas this week to compete with students from more than 60 countries and most states in the U.S.
She will represent Tennessee as a delegate at the American Junior Academy of Sciences (AJAS) Convention in Chicago, Feb. 13-17, 2014.