Manhasset High School seniors win Siemens $100,000 scholarship

Matt Grech

Manhasset High School seniors and childhood friends Kimberly Te and Christine Yoo were named winners of the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technoology on Wednesday, earning the grand prize of a $100,000 college scholarship.

“When I first heard that we won first place, I couldn’t believe it,” Yoo said. “When Kim and I heard our names, we turned to each other and our mouths were wide open, I thought ‘oh my goodness is that actually us?”

Te and Yoo, both 17, were chosen as finalists in the national competition for a project exploring new methods to harness energy and clean up oil spills.

“We designed a device using a loofah sponge, a common everyday loofah sponge,” Yoo said. “You can clean yourself with it, you can even eat it because it’s a cucumber.” 

The device has a “cost-effective design” and is a “profitable and noninvasive method for cleaning up oil spill pollution,” Te said in an interview with the Manhasset Times in November.

The pair competed over the weekend against other finalists in front of a panel of college professors at Geoge Washington University in Washington D.C.

Yoo said she thought the judges really liked their project because “it used something as common as a loofah sponge” and the pair utilized their high school laboratory.

“The creativity of the concept and its potential impact was most impressive,” said competition judge Shawn Lister, associate professor at the Russell V. Trader Faculty Fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, in an interview with the Manhasset Times in November.

Yoo said she didn’t believe she and Te won at first.

“I was completely shocked because meeting the other finalists, everybody was so equal, and everybody had an amazing shot at winning.”

Te and Yoo said they dedicated a lot of time and effort to their project.

“We spent over 1,500 hours on the research, and that doesn’t include the amount of journal articles we read, and the time including writing the paper and making the power point presentation. We had a lot of late nights,” Yoo said.

For their design, Te and Yoo won a $100,000 college scholarship grant to be applied to a school of their choosing.

Yoo said the pair have plans for college, but nothing definite yet as they are still waiting to hear back from the schools to which they applied.

“Kim and I are panning, we’re aiming for the top STEM program and top engineering school,” she said. 

The pair’s science teacher, Alison Huenger, said she was excited by the results.

“Words cannot describe how proud I am of them,” she said. “This has been a very long journey and I’ve been very fortunate to see them grow over the past four years.”

Yoo said her and Te were thankful of the support they received.

“We would like to thank the Siemen’s Foundation and Discovery Education for this opportunity,” she said. “Both of us really appreciate all the support we have from family and friends.”

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