Interview with 2006 Intel ISEF winner Shannon Babb

The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair blog has posted an interview with 2006 ISEF winner Shannon Babb. Babb also won the Seaborg Award, which allowed her to travel to Stockholm to attend the Nobel Prize Award presentation .

One thing that struck me about the interview was that Babb seems to have had an enthusiastic and inspirational high school science teacher:

Q: As the winner of the Seaborg Award at last year's Intel ISEF, you attended the 2006 Nobel Prize Award Ceremonies in Stockholm. What was your most memorable experience there?

A: Well, when I won I had to call Mr. Allen, who was my science teacher all through high school. Every December, he'd throw Nobel day. He had a life goal--when he was younger, he wanted to go to the Nobels. But as he got older, he realized that that probably wouldn't happen. So his life goal then became meeting someone who had been at the Nobels. And I, I actually started crying after I got the award, because it was something very, very important to my teacher, who had given a lot for his students. That's part of what made that entire experience so very special.

Hooray for Mr. Allen and all the teachers who help instill a love a science in their students!

Babb is currently a freshman in Watershed Sciences at Utah State University, where she is "researching paleoclimate indicators and paleocurrents in the Neoproterozoic Era, so I'm working with about 1-billion-year-old rocks, trying to determine what was happening on Earth at that time. " Cool stuff.

Be sure to check out the ISEF blog for more info and photos from the fair.

Tags: Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, ISEF, Shannon Babb