Matthew Feddersen: Shared Intel ISEF's Top Prize at 17

Biography

The award

The Society for Science lists the 2011 Gordon E. Moore Award, worth $75,000, to Feddersen and Marggraff jointly. Shared top awards are uncommon at ISEF, where most entries are individual, and a team taking the fair's first prize is rarer still.

The project title is given in full: 'Treatment of Simulated Cancer Cells with Compton Scattering-Produced Secondary Radiation'. Every substantive word in this entry's description of the work comes from that title and nothing else, because the source publishes no further description.

What the title says

Compton scattering is the process by which a photon collides with an electron, transfers part of its energy and continues on a changed path with lower energy. The scattered photons and displaced electrons are the secondary radiation of the title.

The stated target is simulated cancer cells, not patients and not animals — a laboratory model. The source does not report the materials used, the radiation source, the dose or the results obtained, so this page makes no claim about whether the approach worked or how it compares with clinical radiotherapy.

The 2011 fair

Intel ISEF 2011 ran from 8 to 13 May at the Los Angeles Convention Center. More than 1,500 young scientists competed, selected from 443 affiliated fairs across 65 countries, regions and territories.

Seventeen Best of Category winners received $5,000 each, and more than 400 finalists left with awards of some kind. The Moore Award sits at the top of that structure as the single largest prize of the week.

Who else won in 2011

Two Intel Foundation Young Scientist Awards of $50,000 were given that year. One went to a three-student team from Suratpittaya School in Suratthani, Thailand — Pornwasu Pongtheerawan, 16, Tanpitcha Phongchaipaiboon, 17, and Arada Sungkanit, 17 — for 'Bio-Based Packaging Plastics from Fish Scale'.

The other went to Taylor Ramon Wilson, 17, of Reno, Nevada, for 'Countering Nuclear Terrorism: Novel Active and Passive Techniques for Detecting Nuclear Threats'. Between them, the 2011 top awards covered radiation medicine, biodegradable packaging and nuclear detection.

What is documented — and what is not

The Society for Science listing gives his full name, age, home town, the award, the amount and the project title. It names no school, no mentor and no laboratory, and it publishes no abstract.

It also stops in May 2011. No source used here reports where Feddersen studied afterwards, whether the work was continued or published, or what he does now. His birth year is inferred from being 17 that May and is approximate.

Reading a shared award

Joint awards raise an obvious question about who did what, and the record does not answer it. Both students are listed equally on the same project, with the same prize, and neither is described as the lead.

This page treats them as the source does: two co-authors of one entry. A separate page covers Marggraff, but nothing in the documentation used here divides the credit between them.

Achievement Timeline

Matthew Feddersen — every milestone on this page, in order.

8-13 May 2011

Intel ISEF held at the Los Angeles ConIntel ISEF held at the Los Angeles Convention Center with more than 1,500 finalists from 65 countries, regions and territories

May 2011

Feddersen, 17, and Marggraff, 18, sharFeddersen, 17, and Marggraff, 18, share the $75,000 Gordon E. Moore Award

May 2011

Young Scientist Awards of $50,000 go tYoung Scientist Awards of $50,000 go to a Thai team for fish-scale packaging plastics and to Taylor Wilson for nuclear threat detection

Historical Comparison

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
Matthew Feddersen	United States	Shared the $75,000 Gordon E. Moore Award at Intel ISEF 2011	Age 17

What is documented — and what is not

✓ Documented

Shared the $75,000 Gordon E. Moore Award at Intel ISEF 2011, aged 17 (Society for Science)
Project title: 'Treatment of Simulated Cancer Cells with Compton Scattering-Produced Secondary Radiation'
From Lafayette, California; co-winner Blake Marggraff, 18

? Unverified, disputed or wrong

No abstract, method or results published in the source
No school, mentor or laboratory named
No information on his education or career after 2011; the division of work between the two students is not documented

Questions people ask about Matthew Feddersen

How old was Matthew Feddersen when he won?

Seventeen, in May 2011. No date of birth appears in the source used here.

What did he win?

The Gordon E. Moore Award, Intel ISEF's top prize, worth $75,000, shared with Blake Marggraff.

What was the project?

'Treatment of Simulated Cancer Cells with Compton Scattering-Produced Secondary Radiation'. The source publishes the title but no abstract.

What is Compton scattering?

The process in which a photon collides with an electron, gives up part of its energy and continues on a new path. The scattered particles are the secondary radiation in the project title.