Clara Louisa Fannjiang
California
Davis Senior High School
Clara Louisa Fannjiang, 17, of Davis, submitted a physics and space science project to the Intel
Science Talent Search that focused on radio interferometry, a method of observing the same object in space through
widely separated radio telescopes connected by some type of transmission line. The current technique uses huge
amounts of data to image radio sources, a requirement that Clara hoped to eliminate through compressed sensing
(CS) — a method used to reconstruct images from highly incomplete data sets. Through simulations, she looked for
the best antennae array for CS application. She believes her discoveries, including a way to optimize performance
of the Very Large Array, will help astronomers save processing time and generate clearer images. She authored a
paper on her results which was published by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. At Davis Senior High School,
Clara is co-captain of a Science Bowl team and is also co-editor-in-chief of Polyphony H.S., a national literature
journal for high school writers. She is an award-winning pianist and poet, and has perfect SAT scores. Clara is
the daughter of Albert and Jean Fannjiang, and her first language is Mandarin.
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