December 6th, 2005

Michael Viscardi, who is a homeschooled student from San Diego, California, won a prestigious high school science competition this Monday.  He won for the novel idea to solving an old math problem in the design of airplane wings. 

Viscardi, who is only 16 years old, won the top individual prize for the Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology.   The prize is a $100,000 college scholarship.

The judges at the competition were very impressed with Viscardi’s knowledge on math.  Constance Atwell, a lead judge and former research director at the National Institutes of Health stated, “He is a super-duper mathematics student.  It was almost impossible for our judges to figure out the limits of his understanding during our questioning.  And he’s only 16 years old.” 

The competition also awarded a $100,000 shared scholarship to a team.  The winners of the Team competitions were Anne Lee, 17, and Albert Shieh, 16, are both from Arizona.  They will share the scholarship.  They had improved upon computer technology that will help find the genetic roots for inherited diseases like Alzheimer's, autism and bipolar disorder.