2019 Annual Report

GIRLS WIN THE DAY Sidor Clare, Lauren Ejiaga, Alaina Gassler, Rachel Bergey and Alexis MacAvoy (left to right) won the five Broadcom MASTERS top awards.

Girls in STEMShine Broadcom MASTERS

HEADING TO CAPITOL HILL The Broadcom MASTERS finalists head to Capitol Hill to meet with their senators and representatives.

DISCUSSING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH Finalist Pauline Victoria Allasas Estrada explains her remote drought stress detection device to visitors at the Science and Engineering Project Showcase.

Continuing with Society firsts, all the top winners of 2019’s Broadcom MASTERS, the nation’s premier sci- ence and engineering competition for middle school students, were girls. Alaina Gassler, of West Grove, Pa., won the $25,000 Samueli Founda- tion Prize for her project on reducing blind spots in cars and her exemplary performance during the Broadcom MASTERS hands-on challenges. She designed a system that uses a web- cam to display anything that might block the driver’s line of sight. Alaina was inspired to create her device after

seeing her mother struggle with blind spots in their family automobile.

Other top winners included Rachel Bergey, of Harleysville, Pa., who won the $10,000 Lemelson Award for Invention; Sidor Clare, of Sandy, Utah, won the $10,000 Marconi/ Samueli Award for Innovation; Alexis MacAvoy, of Hillsborough, Calif., won the $10,000 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Award for Health Advancement; and Lauren Ejiaga, of New Orleans, La., won the inaugural $10,000 STEM Talent Award, spon- sored by DoD STEM.

EXPLORING THE CHESAPEAKE Mercedes Rand- hahn and Johan DeMessie seine at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.

COMMUNICATING HER SCIENCE Samueli Prize winner Alaina Gassler shares her project at the Science and Engineering Project Showcase.

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Society for Science & the Public |  2019 ANNUAL REPORT  | 15