Marinade and the grill
Grilling meat at high temperature produces compounds associated with cancer risk. Hodge's project asked a question a cook would recognise and a laboratory could answer: whether marinating the chicken beforehand changed how much of that material formed. Her results showed it did.
It is a model of what a science fair project should be. The question was narrow, the method was testable, and the answer had a practical consequence for anyone with a barbecue. Google's own announcement, on 12 July 2011, named her among the winners of the competition's inaugural year.
Three winners, all girls
The first Google Science Fair produced three age-category winners, and all three were young women: Hodge, Naomi Shah and Shree Bose. Fox News led its report on exactly that, and the coincidence became the story of the competition's first year.
Slate profiled the three in July 2011 under the question of how the Google Science Fair girls had found their calling, and recorded the detail about Hodge that has followed her since: that at five years old she had asked for a cadaver for Christmas.
The Oval Office and the TED stage
On 4 October 2011 the White House published an account of President Obama welcoming the science fair winners to the Oval Office. Hodge was 14.
Later that year she appeared at TEDxWomen alongside Bose and Shah, the three of them presenting their projects together in a talk that TED went on to publish. For a project conceived around a domestic grill, the distance travelled in six months was considerable.
What is documented since
The sources used here stop at the end of 2011. No university, career or later interview appears in this material, and none is inferred. She was 14 at the time of the win and would be in her late twenties now.
The absence is typical of science fair winners. The competition produces an intense burst of coverage and then, in almost every case, nothing, because the participants return to being students.
Why the first Google Science Fair mattered
Science fairs had existed in American schools for decades, judged locally and reported, if at all, in local newspapers. The Google Science Fair was the first to run the whole competition online, opening it to entrants anywhere in the world and putting the projects in front of a global audience rather than a gymnasium.
That change in scale is what made the 2011 result significant beyond the three winners. Three teenage girls took the top places in the inaugural year of an international competition, and were photographed in the Oval Office and filmed on a TED stage within months. For a generation of students watching, the competition had answered a question about who does science before anybody had to argue about it. Hodge's marinade experiment, done at 14 with equipment a school laboratory could supply, was part of that answer.
Watch: Lauren Hodge on camera
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lauren Hodge | United States | Winning the 13-14 age category of the first Google Science Fair, in 2011… | Age 14 |
| Naomi Shah | United States | Winning the 15-16 category of the first Google Science Fair | Age 16 |
| Sophie Healy-Thow | Ireland | Co-winning the Google Science Fair grand prize in 2014 | Age 16 |
| Viney Kumar | Australia | Winner, 13-14 category, Google Science Fair 2013 | — |
| Calvin Rieder | Canada | 2015 Google Science Fair global finalist | — |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Won the 13-14 age category of the first Google Science Fair in July 2011, at 14
- Her project showed marinades reduced carcinogenic compounds in grilled chicken
- Welcomed to the Oval Office by President Obama in October 2011, and spoke at TEDxWomen that year
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- No source documents her education or career after 2011
- The precise chemistry of her results is not set out in the coverage used here
- No IQ figure or school record is published
Questions people ask about Lauren Hodge
What was Lauren Hodge's science fair project?
She tested whether marinating chicken before grilling reduced the carcinogenic compounds that form in the meat at high temperature. Her results showed that it did.
How old was Lauren Hodge when she won?
Fourteen. She won the 13-to-14 age category of the first Google Science Fair in July 2011.
Who else won the first Google Science Fair?
Naomi Shah and Shree Bose took the other age categories. All three winners in the competition's first year were young women.
Did she meet President Obama?
Yes. The White House published an account of the science fair winners being welcomed to the Oval Office on 4 October 2011.
Did Lauren Hodge give a TED talk?
She appeared at TEDxWomen in 2011 with Shree Bose and Naomi Shah, in a joint presentation of their projects that TED published.
Where is Lauren Hodge now?
No source used here documents her university, career or current whereabouts. The available coverage ends in 2011.
Is Lauren Hodge on Wikipedia?
No Wikipedia article on her was found. Her record rests on the Google Science Fair announcement, the White House blog, Slate and Fox News.
What is Lauren Hodge's IQ?
No IQ figure for her appears in any source used here.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Lauren’s story?
What did Lauren Hodge's winning project investigate?
How many winners did the first Google Science Fair have, and who were they?
Where was she welcomed in October 2011?
Sources
- President Obama Welcomes Science Fair Winners to Oval Office — The White House (archived), 2011-10-04
- How the Google Science Fair Girls Found Their Calling — Slate, 2011-07-14
- Girl Power! Three Young Women Crowned Winners of Google Science Fair — Fox News, 2011-07-13
- Hats off to the inaugural Google Science Fair winners — Google Science Fair blog, 2011-07-12
- Award-winning teenage science in action — TED, 2011
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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