IMSA, Neuqua Valley students win prizes at international science fair

A Geneva teen competed this week for a $75,000 prize in an international science fair.

While he didn't win the big award, Emil Khabiboulline did take home an all-expense-paid trip to the CERN accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland.

Khabiboulline presented his findings on the superconductivity of magnets, and the dangers this poses, at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Los Angeles. There were more than 1,500 contestants.

The fair is sponsored by the Society for Science and the Public. Entrants were chosen by local, state and national science fairs. It was the 62nd annual contest.

Khabiboulline is a student at Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora.

Another suburban student won a $3,000 award as part of a two-person team studying “The Effect of Ocean Acidification and Oil Spills on Emiliania huxleyi Transparent Exopolymer Particles.” Mishka Gidwani, a student at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, worked on the study with Kunal Ashok Sangani, a student at Fayetteville Manlius High School in New York.