Sarah Schrader Recognized in National STEM Competition

A student at the Carol Martin Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science in Kentucky has been recognized among over 10,000 middle and high school students in the DuPont Challenge Science Essay Competition.

Sarah Schrader, a second-year student from Bowling Green, was one of 54 students recognized in the 2010 installment of the competition.

Schrader received an Honorable Mention in the Senior Division of the competition and will be awarded with a $200 U.S. savings bond and a certificate.

The DuPont Challenge Science Essay Competition annually invites students from the seventh through twelfth grades to submit their best written essays of 1,000 words or less to compete for cash and travel prizes. Essays can be written on any topic of the students’ choosing within science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Schrader’s essay stemmed from her research work through the Howard Hughes Medical institutes’ Genome Discovery and Exploration Program under the guidance of Drs. Rodney King and Claire Rinehart of the WKU Department of Biology. Using what she had learned through her own bacteriophage research in the past year as a student at the Gatton Academy and WKU, Schrader methodically laid out the possibilities of bacteriophages being used as cures for diseases and viruses after completion of future study and research.

“With a little research, we can easily harness their incredible power into effective, inexpensive, and side-effect free cures,” Schrader penned in her essay. “Who knows? Within a few years, patients may very well come home from the doctor’s office not with a bottle of antibiotics, but instead with a prescription for a phage.”

Schrader credits the research experiences she had in her first year as a Gatton Academy student for her success in the Dupont Challenge Science Essay Competition.

“Before I began my research last year, I didn’t even know what a bacteriophage was,” Schrader said. “My research as a part of the Genome Discovery and Exploration Course introduced me to what they were and how they worked, and furthermore sparked my interest in their unique properties. Since I already knew a lot about bacteriophage from the course, I was comfortable with the material I presented in my essay.”

This summer, Schrader is continuing bacteriophage research under the guidance of Dr. King in the WKU Biotechnology Center.

For more information, contact Derick Strode at (270) 745-3167.

DuPont Challenge, DuPont Challenge Science Essay Competition, Essay, Sarah Schrader, STEM