April 4, 2006 News Media Release

Eighteen Austin area students win awards at state science fair

Eighteen Austin area students won awards at this weekend’s ExxonMobil State Science & Engineering Fair in San Antonio. The students advanced to the fair from the Austin Energy Regional Science Festival held earlier this year.

Chris Lim of Connally High School in Pflugerville won third place in the biochemistry division and a $20,000 scholarship from the University of Texas-Austin at the state competition that drew about 900 competing students from throughout the state. Srikanth Kodali, also of Connally, won third place in the medicine category and an $8,000 scholarship from the University of Texas-San Antonio.

Edward Schmerling and Jennifer Schmerling of LBJ High in Austin teamed with Erik Feng of Plano to win second place in the mathematics team category and share a $20,000 scholarship from UT-Austin.

In addition, Patrick Lavin of Vista Ridge High in Leander won first place in the environmental category and Philip Jordan Spencer of Murchison Middle School in Austin won first place in zoology.

Chris Lim studied how microorganisms can be used to control pathogens that damage crop and fruit plants, while being friendly to the environment and also have possible genetic engineering applications.

Srikanth Kodali studied how genes can be quelled and how silencing is a dominant trait.

Edward Schmerling, Jennifer Schmerling and Erik Feng used algorithms to develop a method to correctly and efficiently sort a list with errors.

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