Winner, winner!
Credit: Lisa Fryklund Photography
A small fan, filter paper and a big question about public health just helped a Fort Lauderdale teenager collect a $25,000 national science prize.
Bailey Quinn Frank, 15, a ninth grader at Pine Crest School’s Fort Lauderdale campus, won the Thermo Fisher Scientific ASCEND Award on October 27 in Washington, D.C. It’s the top honor at the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge, a national middle school STEM competition.
Her winning invention? A low-cost environmental DNA, or eDNA, sampler that collects airborne bacteria. She hopes the approach could help rural communities with limited resources monitor potential health threats.
The idea has deeply personal roots. In an interview with Browardist, Bailey traced her inspiration to her grandmother’s childhood during China’s Cultural Revolution. After her grandmother’s parents were arrested, she and her younger siblings moved from a large city to a countryside shack with distant relatives.
“And so, she'd always taught me a lot about how those health access changes had sort of impacted her and her family as they were much more prone to disease and they had significantly less access to the same clinics and physicians as they had previously,” Bailey says.
Reading about gaps in rural health surveillance helped turn that family history into a research question. Bailey began exploring research through a seventh-grade science program at Pine Crest. She says preparing the research and documentation for the Broward County competition took approximately three months, including a roughly two-week wait for sequencing results. A conversation with a judge at Florida’s state science fair helped her recognize the significance of her work.
In Washington, another moment stuck – younger students asking how they could get into science themselves. “And I think that was the first time I sort of realized that I could have the same impact that they could have,” she says.
Bailey was among 30 finalists selected from nearly 2,000 applicants representing 47 states and five territories. Her award recognized her research and her performance in team challenges, which included investigating an illness outbreak and building protective enclosures for diamondback terrapin eggs. Each finalist’s school also received a $1,000 STEM grant.
“Honestly, it was one of the best experiences of my life,” she says. “Not only were they some of the smartest people I've ever met at such a young age, but they were also just such kind people, so friendly.”
Next comes deciding where her curiosity takes her. Bailey hopes to use some prize money for research, STEM programs and other learning opportunities, while saving a substantial amount. “I have been looking a lot more into how I can expand my current research on this specific project,” she says.
Born in New York City and raised for nearly nine years in Connecticut, Bailey moved to Florida in fourth grade. She plays soccer and tennis, enjoys gardening and checks out pottery and painting spots with her mom. She also founded the Environmental Action Club with her sister. Science, social entrepreneurship, art and design are all on her radar.
“From here, I think I'm really just going to follow where my interests take me,” she says.
