Blazer advances in national science competition

Blair senior and magnet student Michael Winer was one of forty finalists chosen on January 21 out of over 1,800 students to be recognized by the Society for Science and the Public in the Intel Science Talent Search, a nationally recognized annual competition that evaluates innovation in scientific research conducted by high school seniors.

Winer, whose project submission was titled "Interactions of Electrons and Phonons in a Crystal," used the same topic from a research project he developed while in the magnet program. He studied and researched the interactions between Phonons, which are sound particles, and electrons in crystal. "It was actually my mentor's idea to study how sound interacts with electrons," he said. "I came up with the idea of it being a crystal because crystals have an irregular array of atoms, which makes them a lot easier to study."

He learned about the opportunity to enter his project into the Intel Science Talent search in his classes and said that a lot of magnet students participate in the competition. "A lot of magnet students do a research project and a ton of magnet students do this competition," he said. Though he didn't expect to advance as far as he did, Winer was excited to find out he was a finalist. "I was very happy and slightly surprised,” he said.

Winer will travel to Washington D.C. along with the other 39 finalists on March 5 to present his work in another round of judging for the chance to win awards and prizes totaling over 1.6 million dollars, provided by the three students< from the Washington-metropolitan area to be a finalist.