USAID News:The U.S. Agency for International Development has presented the 2019 Science for Development Award to Lillian Petersen of Los Alamos, at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) in Phoenix, Ariz.
Petersen won second place ($3,000 prize) in USAID’s Digital For Development Category for her project, Novel Computational Tool to Inform Cost-Effective Nutrition Interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa project. She is a past USAID Science for Development Award recipient.
This year Petersen teamed up with another high school student, Garyk Brixi of Potomac, Md. to create a tool that examines the root causes of child malnutrition and produces cost-effective nutrition interventions.
Students competed in regional, state and national science fairs around the world for a chance to showcase and receive funding to further adapt and scale their solutions that address some of the world’s most pressing global development challenges.
USAID supports American innovators, scientists and researchers like Petersen whose new discovery advances USAID’s ability to further explore and test alternative solutions. These solutions can help advance developing countries’ journey to self-reliance.
ABOUT USAID
The United States Agency for International Development is the world’s premier international development agency and a catalytic actor driving development results. USAID’s work advances U.S. national security and economic prosperity, demonstrates American generosity, and promotes a path to recipient self-reliance and resilience.
ABOUT INTEL ISEF
Intel ISEF, a program of the Society for Science & the Public (the Society), is the world’s largest international pre-college science competition. Each May the competition attracts over 1,800 young scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs from 81 countries to exhibit and demonstrate ingenuity and innovation through science projects of their own design. Alumni of the program hold more than 100 of the world’s most distinguished science and math honors, including thirteen Nobel Prize Laureates, one Nobel Prize, three National Medals of Science, and six MacArthur Foundation Fellowships.
