The game board as round one is about to begin.
Overcoming obstacles that caused the cancellation of the Student Science Jeopardy! Tournament last summer, Scientific Library staff used a virtual platform to hold the 14th annual tournament earlier this month.
Four students participating in the Summer Internship Program competed in the event, which followed a format similar to Jeopardy!, the popular game show. Instead of mastering the signaling devices used when the game was held in person, students were challenged with remembering to click their online buzzers and unmute themselves in Webex when answering.
Many people attended to support the students as they showed their knowledge of Nobel Prize winners, the periodic table, genetic code, and other categories. Because of the virtual format, interns from other NCI locations were able to participate in the tournament for the first time.
Alan Doss, chemical sciences informationist, hosted the tournament and helped the players navigate the gaming system. Returning judges Dina Sigano, Ph.D., senior technical laboratory manager of the Chemical Biology Laboratory; Howard Young, Ph.D., senior investigator in the Laboratory of Cancer Immunometabolism; and Walter Hubert, Ph.D., scientific program director of the Office of Scientific Operations, were able to resolve any questions about responses.
Yasmine Zouhairi, an intern with the Education Outreach Program, Office of Scientific Operations, NCI (mentor: Cathleen Cullen), created the questions for the game boards. She also created a “Science in the Movies Trivia” slideshow that entertained attendees during the short break between rounds.
In past years’ games, three teams of two students played in three preliminary rounds, then the top teams from each round played in the final round. This year, the tournament consisted of two rounds with the four contestants matching wits individually.
First place went to Katherine Lei in both rounds, with 5,600 points in the second round alone. Her mentors are Liza Lindenberg, M.D., and Esther Mena, M.D., who are both with NCI’s Molecular Imaging Branch. Lei will be a sophomore at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this fall.
Brian Richardson took second place in both rounds, with a score of 4,399 points in the second round. Richardson, a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall, interns with Jianxin Shi, Ph.D., his mentor in NCI’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics Biostatistics Branch.
In both rounds, Phil Huang, who will be a senior at the University of Michigan in the fall, came in third, despite wagering all of his points in the final round. His mentor is Stanley Lipkowitz, M.D., Ph.D., in NCI’s Women’s Malignancies Branch.
Lariana Cline made a valiant effort and conquered the Final Jeopardy! question on bacteriology in the second round. Cline, a sophomore at University of California, Berkeley, this fall, is an intern in the Chemical Biology Laboratory under the supervision of Joe Barchi, Ph.D.
The Recreation and Welfare Club Frederick provided Dunkin’ Donuts e-gift cards and NCI at Frederick face masks as prizes to all the players, and Occupational Health Services gave each player a goodie bag of items from Cigna.
Library staff plan to continue to use this new game platform for future tournaments but look forward to holding this event in person next summer.
Tracie Frederick is the library director. The Scientific Library assists in all phases of the research process by providing information services, resources, and training to all NCI at Frederick and Frederick National Laboratory employees.