Congratulations to the 2020 Regeneron STS Scholars

Regeneron Science Talent Search has announced the 2020 Regeneron STS Scholars, who are the Top 300 entrants in this prestigious pre-college competition. 33 students from California have been honored, including 13 students from Santa Clara County schools and 8 students who competed in the 2019 Synopsys Championship. Congratulations to them and especially to Cynthia Chen of Harker School, who is one of 40 Finalists invited to Washington, D.C., in March to participate in final judging, display their work to the public, meet with notable scientists and compete for awards.

Underserved students are often missing from the finalist groups of science research competitions. In order to change this, the Society for Science & the Public created the Advocate Program to provide mentors to encourage underserved students to enter projects in competitions. The Advocates receive training and support from Society staff, a $3000 stipend and a paid trip to Washington, D.C. to meet in person at a weekend-long convening.  We encourage teachers and mentors to apply!

Use the Check Project Status button on the home page to be sure your application has been received by SCVSEFA. If you don’t find it listed, contact fairmanager@science-fair.org and we’ll watch for it in the mail. There’s one more pickup before the last SRC meeting on Jan. 25.

All students should complete their projects and be ready to be called for early check-in. Selected students will be notified 2 weeks before the fair that they must check in Sunday, March 8, at Santa Clara University and leave their project boards, notebooks, etc. These students may skip check-in at South Hall on March 11; their boards will be set up by SCVSEFA volunteers. See 2020 Rules Changes for background and details.
The SCVSEFA Board is following the lead of the Society for Science and the Public (SSP), which has a focus on ethics for ISEF 2020. For the Synopsys Championship, SCVSEFA is conducting a thorough check of project documentation and appropriate attribution on the poster boards of selected projects in software engineering, computational biology, and those that required pre-approval. 

Please register to be a Category Judge for the 2020 Synopsys Championship Science & Engineering Fair, to be held at the San Jose Convention Center on March 12, 2020. We need and welcome judges in all fields of study.

We are looking for biologists, chemists, engineers, environmental scientists, physicists and others who enjoy talking to enthusiastic young people about scientific inquiry and engineering challenges. Category Judges should have at least a Bachelor’s degree in a technical field or in education (with a concentration in a technical field). See the Category Judging page for details.

We’re getting questions about the deadlines on Jan. 7 and Jan. 21. If your application is received by the 7th, it will go to the SRC for review on the 11th, well before the final rush of applications. But there’s no problem submitting on the final day, January 21 – it allows time for the SRC to review your application and let you know about problems. And, to avoid problems, SRC advises you to check the Minimum Quality Requirements.

Synopsys Championship volunteers will take a holiday break until January 2. The SRC reviewers are nearly finished with the backlog and soon we’ll start checking in the applications received since Dec. 3. (Thank you for your patience.)

• New projects will appear as “received” at Check Project Status until reviews start again on January 11.
• If your project status is “received” or “pending” and the application was received by Dec. 3, it is waiting to be reviewed. A project that requires SRC pre-approval may not start until it is approved. 
• If your project status is “incomplete,” you or your teacher/sponsor have probably received email outlining what is missing or incorrect. Please respond to the message, and we will handle your response as time permits between now and January 2.

Please register to be a Category Judge at the 2020 Synopsys Championship Science & Engineering Fair, which will be held at the San Jose Convention Center on March 12, 2020. We need and welcome judges in all fields of study.

Category Judges should have at least a Bachelor’s degree in a technical field or in education (with a concentration in a technical field). We are looking for biologists, chemists, engineers, environmental scientists, physicists and others who will enjoy talking to enthusiastic young people about scientific inquiry and engineering challenges. Information about being a judge is linked to the Category Judging page.

Be sure that your application is received by midnight on December 3 if your project involves human participants, vertebrate animals, hazardous chemicals or biological materials, hazardous activities, or if it is a continuation project. Details here.

The Synopsys Outreach Foundation still has supplies for teachers and educators this year available free of cost:
Science fair boards,
‘I Did it!’ ribbons,
Rosettes – 1^st, 2^nd, and 3rd place,
‘I Did it!’ stickers
They can be requested by sending email to hello@outreach-foundation.org. Kindly help us spread the word so we can provide support to teachers around the Bay Area!