A shared first prize
The Society for Science lists the 2011 Moore Award to two names on one project. That is unusual: most ISEF entries are individual, and the fair's single largest prize rarely goes to a team.
Both students were from Lafayette, a town in the East Bay of the San Francisco region. The listing does not identify their school, and it gives no indication of how the partnership was formed or how the work was divided between them.
What the project title describes
The title is the extent of the published description: 'Treatment of Simulated Cancer Cells with Compton Scattering-Produced Secondary Radiation'. Three things can be read directly from it.
First, the physics: Compton scattering is what happens when a photon strikes an electron, transfers some of its energy and moves off at a lower energy, producing scattered photons and displaced electrons. Second, the intent: those secondary particles were directed at cancer cells. Third, and most important for reading the claim honestly, the word 'simulated' — the targets were a laboratory model, not tumours in a patient.
What the record does not claim
No results are published in the source used here. There is no abstract, no description of the apparatus, no measurement of cell killing and no comparison with existing radiotherapy.
This matters because projects of this kind are frequently reported afterwards as breakthroughs in cancer treatment. Nothing in the documentation supports that framing. What is documented is that a panel of judges at the world's largest pre-college science fair ranked the entry first among more than 1,500.
The 2011 fair
Intel ISEF 2011 ran from 8 to 13 May at the Los Angeles Convention Center, with more than 1,500 finalists drawn from 443 affiliated fairs across 65 countries, regions and territories. Seventeen Best of Category awards of $5,000 were given, and more than 400 finalists received something.
The two Intel Foundation Young Scientist Awards of $50,000 went to Taylor Ramon Wilson, 17, of Reno, Nevada, for work on detecting nuclear threats, and to a three-student team from Suratpittaya School in Thailand for bio-based packaging plastics made from fish scales.
What is documented — and what is not
The listing gives his name, age, home town, the award, its value and the project title. It names no school, no mentor, no laboratory and no institution.
It also ends with the fair. No source used here follows Marggraff into university, into work, or into any later research. His birth year is inferred from being 18 in May 2011 and is approximate. Anything else circulating under his name is outside the record used for this page.
Why the Moore Award is the one to watch
The Gordon E. Moore Award is named for the Intel co-founder and is given to a single project — or in 2011, a single team — judged best across the entire fair, not best within a category. It carried $75,000 in the Intel era.
Because the fair covers everything from mathematics to environmental engineering, winning it means a cross-disciplinary panel preferred one entry to every other in the hall. That is the substance of what Marggraff and Feddersen did in Los Angeles.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rishi Shiv Prasanna | India | Winning the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar in 2023 at eight, for… | Age 0 |
| Cannan Huey-You | United States | Presenting research on a Milky Way gas cloud at the American Astronomical… | Age 11 |
| Ángela Olazarán Laureano | Mexico | An AI medical assistant built in Veracruz, designed to work where there is | Age 14 |
| Émer Hickey | Ireland | Co-winning the 2014 Google Science Fair grand prize | Age 16 |
| Blake Marggraff | United States | Shared the $75,000 Gordon E. Moore Award at Intel ISEF 2011 | Age 18 |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Shared the $75,000 Gordon E. Moore Award at Intel ISEF 2011 at 18 (Society for Science)
- Project title: 'Treatment of Simulated Cancer Cells with Compton Scattering-Produced Secondary Radiation'
- From Lafayette, California; co-winner Matthew Troy Feddersen
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- No abstract, apparatus or results published in the source
- No school, mentor or institution named
- No reporting used here on his life or work after May 2011
Questions people ask about Blake Marggraff
How old was Blake Marggraff when he won?
Eighteen, in May 2011. No date of birth appears in the source used here.
What did he win?
The Gordon E. Moore Award, the top prize at Intel ISEF 2011, worth $75,000 and shared with Matthew Feddersen.
Did he cure cancer?
No. The project treated simulated cancer cells in a laboratory model, and the source publishes no results at all.
What is Compton scattering?
A photon striking an electron, losing part of its energy and continuing on a new path. The scattered particles are the secondary radiation named in the project title.
Who was his co-winner?
Matthew Troy Feddersen, 17, from the same town of Lafayette, California.
Where is Blake Marggraff now?
No source used here reports on his studies or career after 2011.
Is Blake Marggraff on Wikipedia?
No Wikipedia article on him was confirmed for this entry.
How was the work divided between them?
The source does not say. Both are credited equally on one project.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Blake’s story?
How much was the 2011 Gordon E. Moore Award worth?
What kind of cancer cells did the project use?
Where was Intel ISEF 2011 held?
Sources
- Intel ISEF 2011 (top award winners) — Society for Science
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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