Michael Xing, a recent Baylor School graduate, was on display after receiving fourth-place award recognition at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair in Dallas (photo courtesy of Rachael Davis).
Dr. Rachael Davis said she “jumped in with both feet.”
Dr. Jason Gordon called it “fun and rewarding work and something I really like being a part of.”
Davis and Gordon are members of the School of Education faculty at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The two recently served as chaperones for six local high school students at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, which took place May 13-19 in Dallas.
Hosted by the Society for Science, the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) brought together approximately 1,600 high school students from more than 60 countries and territories—including three from Baylor School, two from McMinn County High School and one from Girls Preparatory School.
“Our dean, Dr. (Valerie) Rutledge, has been sponsoring the ISEF Chattanooga Regional Science and Engineering Fair for quite some time,” said Gordon, an assistant professor in the School of Education who first came to UTC in fall 2020. The Chattanooga science fair sends two winners to the international conference each year.
“That first year I was here, I volunteered to judge the science fair,” Gordon continued, “and being a chaperone kind of grew out of that volunteer role. I was so impressed at what high school students locally are doing and I’ve just stayed with it ever since.”
Rutledge, dean of the College of Health, Education and Professional Studies, said the Chattanooga Regional Science and Engineering Fair (CRSEF) “is a great partnership between UTC and our surrounding counties and allows us to give those students the experience of competing not just at the regional level but at the international level.”
Gordon and Davis, a clinical instructor who joined the UTC faculty this past academic year, traveled to Dallas alongside CRSEF winners Michael Xing (Baylor School)—who will be heading to the University of Oxford in England to study engineering—and aspiring neurosurgeon Anya Parambath (Girls Preparatory School), who will be attending Emory University in Atlanta.
Xing received a fourth-place award at ISEF, which came with a $500 prize, for his project titled “Axial Compressor Design for High Compression-Low Temperature Brayton Cycle Power Unit with Decoupled Hot and Cold Ends.”
“Michael placing was exciting,” Gordon said of the project, in which Xing 3D printed a turbine engine-powered generator. “When Rachael and I heard his name, we were overjoyed. We’re so proud of him because he’s a great young man.”
Four rising seniors, Baylor students Mazie Mitchem and Rachel Chen and McMinn County High School students Arthur Walker and Patrick Ballinger, attended as student observers.
“They were students who were outstanding in the regional fair and have another year of growth; they were all juniors during the competition,” Davis said. “We wanted them to see what it was like at ISEF and what it’s like to compete in an international competition.”
Added Gordon, “They went and now have the big picture of what the International Science and Engineering Fair looks like. They learned more than just content; they learned some of the tricks of the trade and how to better present their ideas. I think it gives them a leg up for next year.”
Davis and Gordon had not met any of the students before serving as judges at this year’s CRSEF event in March.
Davis was quite familiar with the competition from her time as a science teacher at Pell City (Alabama) High School.
“I ran the local science fair for my school,” she said, “so I knew the process.”
After receiving a doctoral degree from the University of Alabama in 2021, she was an assistant professor at Georgia Southwestern State University before coming to UTC.
“Two of the best things that I saw happen during this ISEF competition, beyond our students being successful and making new friendships with fellow research scientists from all over the world, was that I got to see students’ global perspective and cultural awareness completely expand,” Davis said. “For example, one of the students from McMinn came back to me during a student mixer and was like, ‘I just talked to someone from Saudi Arabia and Palestine and Oregon and Florida within about a 15-minute time span.’ It just flabbergasted him to think that he even could be in the company of such diversity.
“Also, I really recognized and appreciated that it allowed the students to see their potential. They can achieve and be everything they want to be—and then some. The only thing that limits them is themselves, so I think this was a very motivating trip.”
Gordon, who laughed as he talked about driving around downtown Dallas—“We can’t send minors off to a large city by themselves, of course, so I got to drive around Dallas in this enormous 12-passenger van; we had to see the JFK Monument and some of the city’s history”—is looking forward to future ISEF trips.
“Absolutely,” he said. “It’s service and it’s meaningful. Anything we can do to connect with and support our community is something we should be doing, and this is just one small way we can do that.”
Anya Parambath, a graduate of Girls Preparatory School, was an ISEF finalist for her project titled “An Eye-Opener to Early Detection and Prevention of Alzheimer’s and Glioblastoma Brain Tumors” (photo credit: Rachael Davis).
