Mingjuan "Lisa" Zhang graduated two weeks ago from the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics and stopped by the BIO 2008 conference in San Diego to pick up a $7,500 prize on her way to visit family in China.
It's becoming almost routine for the brilliant 18-year-old Apex resident, according to Myra Halpin, dean of science at the Durham boarding school for the state's math and science whiz kids. "I haven't heard from her yet, but I'm sure glad to hear she won. And I'm not surprised."
What Zhang won is the 2008 sanofi-aventis International BioGENEius Challenge in one of the most competitive contests available to student scientists. She and classmate Corey Li of Raleigh worked with bacteria that produce plastic as an offshoot of carbon storage. Zhang has been winning prizes around the country for her research aimed at increasing yield and flexibility of the plastic while reducing its production cost.
"Lisa's done a really nice piece of work," said Halpin. "She's a very talented young lady. She's also held leadership roles in our wonderful school orchestra and played in a string quartet. She and Corey did some of their work here as part of another program at Duke, and that's where she intends to study in the fall. Corey is going to MIT."