Rather than attend her school's environmental club meetings, 16-year-old Ann Lai is coming up with her own high-tech solution to the acid rain problem. A sophomore at Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights, Ms. Lai has been absorbed for the last six months in an unusual after-school project -- designing microscopic sensors to detect sulfur dioxide emissions from industrial smokestacks. Coached by Case Western Reserve University professor Chung Chium Liu, Ms. Lai has been dabbling with microscopic cutting-edge technology that's typically only mastered by university graduate students. 'Ann is a real physical sciences kid -- she's very bright,' said Patricia Hunt, director of the Hathaway Brown Science Program, an extracurricular program that gives students hands-on exposure to high-level scientific research in the community. Started last spring, the program has 33 students such as Ms. Lai working on projects that range from cures for heart disease to space shuttle experiments. Ms. Hunt said the young women not only receive school credit for their work with researchers, but they also get a chance to check out potential science careers. Dr. Liu, who is director of the Edison Sensor Technology Center at CWRU, says he volunteers his time to mentor Ms. Lai and three other high school students with the hope of encouraging more young women to pursue science careers. A former state science fair champ, Ms. Lai is one of the few Hathaway Brown students to design her own research project. Dr. Liu said Ms. Lai researched the subject of acid rain and how microsensors can be used to detect emissions. She taught herself how to use the AutoCAD (computer-aided drawing) program, and within a few months came up with a design for a microsensor. 'She did all this herself,' said her mentor, Dr. Liu, pointing at Ms. Lai's computerized drawings depicting the sensor's components. CWRU will set up a special laboratory chamber in which Ms. Lai will begin testing her microdevice this week. If the device successfully senses sulfur dioxide emissions, CWRU will work to patent and license the system for commercial use, Dr. Liu said. Dr. Liu said the microsystem is far smaller and less expensive than equipment used to detect emissions today. That equipment can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said. Ms. Lai's goal is to see her device placed inside the smokestacks of industrial plants, where it would send information to a computer. The computer could monitor different plant processes and even counteract harmful pollutants, Ms. Hunt said. Introduced to Dr. Liu by her father, who is an engineer and former CWRU graduate student, Ms. Lai knew she wanted to do a project on acid rain. She said while taking chemistry as a freshman, she read a section in her textbook about acid rain and the information just 'stayed in her head.' Though she had the environment in mind, Ms. Lai said she's too busy to go to her school's environmental club meetings. Besides schoolwork, she has a jam-packed schedule of violin and piano lessons, orchestra practice, swimming, figure skating, ski club and Chinese calligraphy and painting classes. And despite her time spent after school and over the summer to design the microsensor, Ms. Lai says she wants to become a physicist -- not an electrical engineer who creates microsensors for the rest of her life. 'I think it's interesting, but I don't want to major in it,' she said with a shrug.
WHIZ KID HAS SENSE FOR SCIENCE
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