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NWPE Member Jeff Wehr's Students Win Prestigious STEM Awards
posted by: Cindy Omlin | March 28, 2014, 11:52 PM   


Jeff’s students, along with nearly 100 high school student researchers, demonstrated their science and engineering aptitude at the Mid-Columbia Regional Science and Engineering Fair, Thursday, March 13, 2014.  These powerful thinkers vied for top prizes in STEM-related categories.

jeff-wehr-thorsen-wehr-alexa-bossThorsen Wehr was one of two students awarded the Grand Prize.  Son of NWPE member Jeff Wehr, Thorsen was selected to represent Washington State at the 2014 International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) held in Los Angeles this coming May. His Physics and Astronomy project was titled, “The Generation and Analysis of Sound Waves with Varying Nonlinearity.”  Practical applications of Thor's research consist of a variety of medical uses, nonlinear beam-forming arrays, military non-invasive strikes through air-water-solids, or mapping the ocean floor.

Also from the Odessa High School’s ASR Laboratory, Alexa Boss was awarded 1st Place in the Senior Division.  The award allows Alexa to attend ISEF with Thor as a student observer.  Her Medicine and Health project was titled, “Analyzing Retinal Vascular Tortuosity in Fundus Photography as an Indicator for Health.”  Alexa’s analysis of fundus photography, or pictures of the blood vessels in the eye, revealed statistically varied retinal tortuosity between healthy, glaucoma, and diabetic patients. Alexa’s method and index of tortuosity/count ratio could be used to diagnose patients quickly and inexpensively.

Read more about the science and engineering competitors’ research in the
Odessa Record.

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