White House Photo Gallery

STS finalists pose with President George W. Bush outside the White House in 2004. That year, the Society awarded  more than $400,000 in scholarship money to the 40 finalists.

President George W. Bush welcomes the 2005 STS finalists to the White House East Room. After their meeting, the students watched the president present the National Medals of Science and Technology.

2005 STS finalists pose with President George W. Bush in the East Room of the White House. The top winner that year, David Bauer (third row, fourth from left), designed a device that rapidly detects nerve-damaging chemicals.

President George W. Bush greets 2006 STS finalists at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C. In 2006, Utah native Shannon Babb (front row, third from left) won the top prize for studying pollution in the Spanish Fork River in her home state.

2006 STS finalist Cindy Wang discusses her project with then-Senator Barack Obama. For her project, Wang mapped the DNA mutation in mice that is responsible for colorblindness. Her research could lead to potential cures for colorblindness in humans.

Senator Barack Obama learns about 2006 STS finalist Letian Zhang’s mathematics project. Zhang studied positive lattice points in an n-dimensional tetrahedra. This research helped him prove the General Estimate Granville-Lin-Yau conjecture.

2006 STS finalist Sukrit Ranjan presents his project to then-Senator Barack Obama. Ranjan conducted a topographical analysis of the surface of Mars which helped him disprove previous theories about polar cloud formation on the planet.

Vice President Dick Cheney meets with 2007 STS finalists at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. During the Science Talent Institute, the finalists met other prominent politicians, including Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.

President Barack Obama receives 2009 STS finalists on the White House steps. Eric Larson (second row from back, third from left) won the top award for his project, “The Classification of Certain Fusion Categories.”

President Barack Obama speaks at the first White House Science Fair in 2010. The president invited eight finalists of the Society’s research competitions to showcase their projects at the fair.

Erika DeBenedictis, an alumna of STS, ISEF and the Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge competition, discusses her research with President Barack Obama at the 2010 White House Science Fair. DeBenedictis won the top award at ISEF 2010 for developing a navigation system for space travel.

ISEF 2010 top winner Amy Chyao (far right) poses for a photo with First Lady Michelle Obama at the State of the Union address in 2011. The first lady invited Chyao, who developed a photosensitizer for treating cancer for her ISEF project, to join her in her viewing box for the address.