Sarah A. Maclean
Colorado State University, School of Biomedical Engineering
Fadi Gerges
Wichita State University
Kevin M. Fleischmann
Virginia Tech Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences
Judith E. Pasek
University of Wyoming
Due to the worldwide SARS-CoV-2 pandemia, the 2020 IBSIS-RMBS symposium was canceled. However, unanimously, the RMBS board decided to complete the written competition and award the corresponding certificates and pre-registration coupons.
All students and professionals that submitted a full written paper were included in the contest, even if they elicited not to participate.
31 papers were reviewed as part of the paper acceptance process. One author presented two papers. Each paper was reviewed by at least two judges. Ten judges expressed their preferences in the written competition and they reviewed on average seven papers, with a minimum of five and a maximum of fourteen papers. The written scores were normalized for each judge and the total score for each paper was the average of the normalized scores. After the scores were tallied up, the participants were divided into student and professional groups and the winners decided.
Among all the student participants, we had one high school student that submitted a full paper. This is what her teacher said about her:
I am Grace Lena's Science Research Teacher and we are both so excited that she has been accepted to the 57th Annual Rocky Mountain Bioengineering Symposium to be held in Laramie, Wyoming April 23-26, 2020 pending paper edits. We truly appreciate your revisions and she is in the process of amending her paper now. We really would like to attend and present, however, Grace is a Senior and her Prom is on that Friday. We were wondering if it would be possible for her to present on Saturday, April 25? We are going to try to get a red-eye out of NYC or leave really early on Sat. This is truly such an amazing opportunity and I don't want her to miss out on it because of Prom.Although the cancellation of the conference (and of any social activity in NYC and surrounding areas) proved their request a mute point, it was decided to recognize her interest in science by awarding her the Anthony Sances Jr. Award of Merit. For more information on Grace, visit her website.