On this cool but sunny Saturday nine individuals volunteered to judge 248 posters sent in from students in Grades K through 12. These judges were from academia & industry and included many first-timers! These judges were:

• Luyan Dai (Boeringer Ingleheim) **
• Jay Emerson (Yale University)
• Tong Guo (Bristol-Myers) **
• Josie Hamer (Western Connecticut State University) **
• Laura McSweeney (Fairfield University) **
• Joann Shapiro (Bayer) **
• Neal Thomas (Pfizer)
• Chao Zhu (Bristol-Myers) **

** First time judge

After a couple of hiccups (such as getting through BMS Security) and some coffee, the team decided to get oriented by reviewing the smallest group of posters, the nine posters from Grades 7-9. With that under their belt, they moved onto the 46 posters for Grades 10-12 and 65 posters for Grades K-3. The last group of Grade 4-6 consisted of 128 posters and had the liveliest discussion among the reviewers.

Some of the topics which came under the scrutiny of the students were the following:

• Safest place to live in the US, weather-wise
• Correlation between GPA and SAT Scores
• Fuel efficiency and tire pressure
• Winter Olympics
• Texting

The entire task of judging was completed in approximately 3 hours! From all the student participants, 22 posters were picked as winners! These 22 posters will be forwarded to the ASA in Washington D.C. for the National Competition.

On behalf of the Connecticut Chapter, I would like to thank all the participants (judges and students) and look forward to next year’s competition!

Marianne Messina
Chairperson for 2010 Poster Competition