Hilo student racks up
science accolades

Seventeen-year-old Kimberly Reinhold says she hasn't had time to think about all the awards she won in international competition last week.

Kimberly Reinhold: Wants to continue exploring artificial intelligence

She just got back to Hilo from the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, she said in a telephone interview. "I have a lot of school work. I'm trying to finish through the year."

After she graduates Sunday from St. Joseph Junior Senior High School and tallies her awards, she'll find:

"It's really nice to have all this extra money," said Reinhold, who has won significantly more over the past four years at science fairs and in other competitions.

She won a first place $16,000 scholarship last month at the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium sponsored by the Army, Navy and Air Force in San Diego.

That was on top of $2,000 she won at the Pacific Symposium for Science and Sustainability in Honolulu in January.

Larry Mordan, Kamehameha Schools science department chairman who accompanied five Hawaii students to San Diego, said Reinhold competed "with the cream of the cream" to win first place in computer science.

"She blew them (judges) away," Mordan said.

Reinhold recently was selected with Christian Ling of Wailuku as Hawaii's Presidential Scholars for 2005. They'll go to Washington, D.C., on June 25 for a four-day program and a ceremony sponsored by the White House.

"It's been kind of a life-changing experience for me," Reinhold said of her science awards. "I didn't know what I wanted to do until I started competing in the seventh grade.

"Now, I know I want to be a researcher."

She will attend Massachusetts Institute of Technology this fall.

She wants to continue looking at artificial intelligence and figure out how the human brain works. "It may take me more in a medical direction," she said.

Reinhold has won the top award at the Hawaii State Science and Engineering Fair for four years with a project she keeps advancing on artificial intelligence.

"But there's so much more to the science fair than just winning," she said.

Reinhold said she still gained a lot through experience and contacts with scientists and other kids.

She said she did all her research herself on her project, trying to create a computer program modeling the human visual pathway and applying that system to cancer diagnosis.

Her parents (both pathologists at Hilo Medical Center) and teachers have been very supportive, she said. "Also, judges have given me good ideas. My entire school has been really nice."

For her, science is fun, but she also has a lot of other activities, she said.

She dances ballet, tap and jazz at the Island Dance Academy, plays oboe in a band, takes private French lessons and "hangs out with friends."

She swam three years on the varsity team, but dropped it this year to concentrate on dance.