Top 10 young scientists named to Team Canada

Toronto, ON March 17, 2003 As part of its celebration of Youth Science Month in Canada, Youth Science Foundation Canada today announced that ten young scientists from across the country have been selected to represent our nation as Team Canada – YSF.

The elite group was selected by an expert panel at the University of Western Ontario, drawing from a pool of applicants who had already successfully competed at Canada’s national championships, The Canada-Wide Science Fair.

As Team Canada – YSF, these brilliant students will compete at the annual Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, to be held this year in Cleveland, Ohio from May 11 to 17, vying with 1,200 competitors from 40 nations.

This year’s team consists of:

– Gina Gallant (Prince George, British Columbia) – “PAR III” Paving Our Future
– Gaetan Kenway (Winterland, Newfoundland and Labrador) – The Future is Flying Low
– Vladich Lavrovsky (Calgary, Alberta) – Enzyme Driven Enhanced Oil Recovery
– Rachelle Miron (North Bay, Ontario) and Lydia Weiskopf (Astorville, Ontario) – Paleolimnological Water Quality Reconstruction of Four Mile Bay, Trout Lake
– Mubdi Rahman (Toronto, Ontario) – Investigation into Galactic Halo Star Formation
– Jonathan Sick (Calgary, Alberta) – Development of an Adaptively Controlled Telescope with Star-Pattern Recognition Pointing
– Wallace Truong and William Truong (Regina, Saskatchewan) – Molecular Characterization of TEM-Type Extended-Spectrum b-Lactamases Produced by Saskatchewan Isolates of Escherichia coli
– Will Turk (Winnipeg, Manitoba) – Gene Expression in Normal and Abnormal Development

Last year, Team Canada-YSF brought home nine Grand Awards and six prestigious first-place titles. They won over US$135,000 in prizes and scholarships. Historically, 85% of all Canadians who have competed at the international fair have received awards.

Canada’s team operates under the auspices of Youth Science Foundation Canada (YSF Canada), the country’s leading organization for youth science awareness, and with sponsorship from Intel of Canada Ltd. and Genome Canada.

“Team Canada-YSF members continuously excel at this international competition, and we’re confident that this year’s team will be successful once again,” says Farhad Seif, president of YSF Canada. “Canadians should share in the pride that the parents and over 8,000 volunteers have in these young scientists and join us in wishing them well in Cleveland.”

The selection of Team Canada occurs during Youth Science Month, as 25,000 young scientists take part in regional science fairs across the country. The top 450 of those students will move on to the 2003 Canada-Wide Science Fair, to be held in Calgary from May 10 to 18.