[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 33 (Thursday, March 17, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S2991]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  IN PRAISE OF DAVID VIGLIAROLO BAUER

 Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I am proud to submit this 
statement in praise of David Vigliarolo Bauer, a New York City public 
school student who won the top $100,000 prize in this year's Intel 
Science Talent Search, STS. David attends Manhattan's Hunter College 
High School, known for its excellence and high educational standards. 
His project, which was inspired by the events of September 11, began in 
the bio-organic chemistry lab of Professor Valeria Balogh-Nair at the 
City College of New York, CCNY. A coworker at the CCNY lab had been 
exposed to asbestos at Ground Zero the day of the attack. David has 
designed a new type of universal sensor for neurotoxins in the body 
which he believes has the potential to save thousands of lives by 
rapidly detecting and evaluating individual exposure to biochemical 
agents.
  The Intel STS is often considered the ``junior Nobel Prize'' and is 
America's oldest and most highly regarded precollege science 
competition. Alumni of the program hold more than 100 of the world's 
most coveted science and math honors, including six Nobel Prizes.
  David and his family can be proud of this outstanding achievement, 
and I am heartened by his interest in using science to the potential 
benefit of our first responders in the war on terrorism. I ask that the 
following New York Times article of March 16, 2005 be printed in the 
Record. I congratulate David Bauer for his creativity and leadership.
  The article follows:

                            [March 16, 2005]

          New Yorker Takes Top Prize in Intel Science Contest

                            (By Lia Miller)

       New York City public school student whose project was 
     inspired by the events of Sept. 11 has won the top prize of a 
     $100,000 scholarship in this year's Intel Science Talent 
     Search.
       The winner, David L. V. Bauer, is a 17-year-old senior at 
     Hunter College High School in Manhattan. He worked on a new 
     method to detect toxic agents in the nervous system. Mr. 
     Bauer said that his study could result in a patch, worn 
     somewhat like a radiation patch is on a jacket, that would 
     quickly detect how much neurotoxin a person had been exposed 
     to.
       ``I was thinking more in terms of paramedics and individual 
     exposure, so in the event of a terrorist attack, we would 
     know the nature of the attack,'' he said.
       Forty finalists have been competing for the last five days 
     in Washington for $530,000 in scholarship money. Each 
     finalist will receive at least $5,000.
       Mr. Bauer began his study last year while working in the 
     bio-organic chemistry lab of Prof. Valeria Balogh-Nair at the 
     City College of New York. He said that a co-worker at the lab 
     had been at ground zero the day of the attack. Mr. Bauer was 
     amazed to hear that testing showed that the co-worker had a 
     different level of exposure to asbestos in the bloodstream 
     than others in the same area. It was this finding, Mr. Bauer 
     said, that led him to begin thinking of a way to quickly 
     determine a person's neurotoxin exposure levels through the 
     use of fluorescent nanocrystals.
       Mr. Bauer, who is from the Bronx, plans to attend the CUNY 
     Honors College in the fall to study chemistry and hopes to 
     teach at the university level one day.
       Now that the competition is over, he said he was looking 
     forward to taking up some of his other interests, which 
     include fencing and overseeing an organization he founded 
     called United Liberia, which runs a Web site that provides 
     news about Liberia. Since seventh grade, Mr. Bauer has 
     attended Hunter College High, a public high school 
     administered by the college.
       Professor Balogh-Nair, who was Mr. Bauer's mentor, said: 
     ``He is an unusual student, both by the depth of his 
     understanding of science--but he is multitalented--you seldom 
     find a combination of talents in one person. He has great 
     people skills, too.''
       The last time a student from the New York metropolitan area 
     won the top prize was in 2000, when Viviana Risca from Paul 
     D. Schreiber Senior High School in Port
       Washington, N.Y., won for encrypting a message on a DNA 
     strand. This year there were 13 finalists from New York 
     State, but only Mr. Bauer made the top 10.
       The second-place winner was Tim Credo, 17, a senior from 
     the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. He won a 
     $75,000 scholarship for a study involving particle 
     accelerators and a more precise way to measure brief 
     intervals of time known as picoseconds. Third place went to 
     Kelly Harris, 17, from C. K. McClatchy High School in 
     Sacramento. She won a $50,000 scholarship for her study on Z-
     DNA and viral proteins.
       The technology company Intel has sponsored the contest 
     since 1999. Before then, the Westinghouse Electric 
     Corporation sponsored it.

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