Tri-State Open Science Challenge Awards $16K to Four Citizen Scientists
Maria Thompson
on
December 12, 2012
We’ve just wrapped up the Tri-State Open Science Challenge, the second that we’ve held. We are proud to announce four winners awarding $16,000 worth of research money. We are excited to see where the projects go and hope that the research funding goes a long way towards helping them with their projects. Along with the prize money, winners also earned a 1-year subscription to Genspace, our community laboratory partner for this competition. Science not only needs money, but the input of others, so this will be a great value to the winners. We’d also like to thank the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) for donating one of the $5000 prizes, a great example of the government supporting citizen research.
In the future, we hope to have our third open science competition in Scientist’s home turf, San Diego, as we help launch a community laboratory in Carlsbad. Also, look for the results of our Rare Disease Science Challenge in early 2013, our initiative hosted with Rare Genomics Institute and sponsored by 20 research service providers. Scientist is always looking to empower researchers, whether through our site or research funding.
To read more about the Tri-State Challenge results, check out our press release.
Scientist, the world’s largest online research services marketplace, and Genspace selected four citizen scientists as winners for the first Tri-State Open Science Challenge. The challenge has awarded prizes for general science, BioArt, and under 18, as well as a fourth award sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
The winners of the $5000 prizes are as follows:
- Kazi Yasin Helal, working on enzyme-based stain removal
- Peter Yeadon, constructing a bimolecular sensor system for arsenic and other chemicals
- Maria Aiolova, building genetically generated furniture
Jalwa Afroz, our high school winner, will receive $1000 to perform DNA barcoding of NYC catfish.
All winners receive a one-year membership to the Genspace community laboratory in Brooklyn, New York.