Interview with Steven Byrnes, Juliet Girard, Roshan Prabhu
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The annual Siemens Westinghouse competition is a showcase for some of the nation's brightest high school students. These whiz kids are honored for their remarkable achievements in math, science and technology. And we are going to meet three of this year's winners, who were named yesterday. Steven Byrnes, Juliet Girard, and Roshan Prabhu. Congratulations to you all.</s>STEVEN BYRNES, SIEMENS WESTINGHOUSE SCHOLARSHIP WINNER: Thank you.</s>JULIET GIRARD, SIEMENS WESTINGHOUSE SCHOLARSHIP WINNER: Thank you.</s>ROSHAN PRABHU, SIEMENS WESTINGHOUSE SCHOLARSHIP WINNER: Thank you.</s>ZAHN: Steven, I am going to start with you this morning. You take home -- singularly a $100,000 award. When you heard your name announced, could you believe you were the guy that had won?</s>BYRNES: I was really excited. I really didn't know who was going to win. I mean, they're judging math projects against biology projects against computer projects, and it's hard to say which is better, but I was definitely really excited when I learned I was going to win.</s>ZAHN: And your project was on prosets (sic), which none of us really knew what the heck you did, but we're happy you did it. What is that?</s>BYRNES: Well, I studied a class of two player games, called poset games. It includes many important games that mathematicians have been studying for years, but they've only been studied separately, independently from one another, before now. So I found the first major theorem that tied to all poset games, so I tied this family of unrelated games together into a unified field of math.</s>ZAHN: It's called poset...</s>BYRNES: Yes.</s>ZAHN: Not like "proset," as in in sports. All right. Let's go on to Juliet and Roshan. Have you figured out how you are going to split your win here?</s>PRABHU: We're splitting it 50/50.</s>ZAHN: Fifty-fifty? I don't know. When Juliet walked in here a little bit earlier, she said maybe she was going to go for the 70 percent. How did you two win? What did do you?</s>GIRARD: Our research actually worked on mapping genes in rice that control early flowering. The idea behind it is that you can engineer rice that flowers earlier so that you can increase the yearly production of rice to meet the demand for the staple caused by population rates, growing population rates.</s>ZAHN: Why did the two of you think of that in the first place?</s>PRABHU: Well, we didn't actually think of the project. We applied for a summer internship called NASA Sharp Plus (ph) and they placed us at Cornell University where we discussed various possible projects with our mentor, and then Juliet's interest in genetics and my interest in computer science were then combined into this one project.</s>ZAHN: And what could be the practical applications of what you learned, and what you won this award for?</s>GIRARD: Well, obviously, one of the most important applications is that you can increase food production to feed, like, a growing population, especially in third world countries where it's needed the most. Another important application is that you can actually decrease the use of water, the use for irrigation, which is important because the water resources are really dwindling in countries like Asia.</s>ZAHN: Have you gotten any interest from corporations yet? I know this is a brand-new win, but one would assume, based on how promising this looks, you're going to hearing from a lot of people.</s>PRABHU: Well, we haven't gotten any interest from corporations just yet. We just won yesterday...</s>ZAHN: Oh, I thought the phone would be ringing off the wall by now.</s>GIRARD: Cornell usually patents the rights that they work on, so the corporations come in later, once it has been patented.</s>ZAHN: So, Steven, why is this so important to be recognized for this stuff? Have you found, during your -- your school years that not enough emphasis has been placed on math and science? You hear that complaint from a lot of kids across the country. Those that like to learn, at least.</s>BYRNES: Yes -- when you look at the amount of publicity that high school athletes get, it's really natural to wonder why people who do arguably more important stuff in math and science don't get recognized as well.</s>ZAHN: So this is a great little bit of recognition you think you guys have long deserved. What do you plan to do when you grow up? Do you have any idea?</s>BYRNES: I really enjoyed the kind of research that I was doing for this project, and I would want to do theoretical research as a career, quite possibly, and maybe teach. I'm not really sure, wherever life leads me.</s>ZAHN: Juliet, I don't want to sound sexist here, but so many women in our staff were thrilled to hear you were one of the awardees, because I think it is very important that there is a symbol, that someone such as yourself can maintain an interest in science and gain expertise. What do you want to say to young women out there who might be inspired by you?</s>GIRARD: I think that it is sort of important for women to be recognized and to show that they can really stand out there with everyone else and all the other boys and really show that we're just as important in the scientific careers, and I think that's something where it hasn't been represented as much, and that now, as we move on, it's something where it's more important, and you can see that girls are coming out in the science field.</s>ZAHN: I want to do a quick round robin here. Roshan, what do you plan to do with the $50,000 you won?</s>PRABHU: Of course, use it on college scholarships, and I'm probably applying to Cornell, MIT and various other schools, like Rutgers, Rochester Institute of Technology.</s>ZAHN: Oh, aiming for the top there, and why not? Congratulations. Juliet, what are you going to do with the $50,000?</s>GIRARD: I'm definitely spending it on college, because my parents really can't afford much. I'm going to apply to Harvard and MIT and Cornell. So we'll see which one I choose.</s>ZAHN: Well, I guess you deserve to have these lofty aspirations. Steven, what are you going to do?</s>BYRNES: I'll also be spending it on college. I've applied to Harvard, so I'm hoping to go there.</s>ZAHN: You two know how fast that money will go at Harvard, right? About three quarters of a year and that is gone. Well, congratulations to all three of you. You really are -- I think, a powerful symbol to all of us here, and we are very happy to recognize your achievements here this morning. Again, congratulations. We'll be looking for all three of you. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com Prabhu>