Addiction Science Awardees Present at NIDA

On hand at the award ceremony are (front, from l) NIDA’s Dr. Jack Stein, 2017 Intel Science Fair winners Nkima Stephenson, Kashfia Rahman and Anusha Zaman and NIDA’s Carol Krause. At rear are (from l) 2008 Intel Science Fair winner Kapil Ramachandran and Friends of NIDA’s Drs. Bill Dewey and Charles O’Keeffe.

The 2017 winners of NIDA’s Addiction Science Awards, part of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), presented their projects to NIDA scientists recently. They also toured the NIH campus as well as the NIDA IRP Bayview facility in Baltimore. 

This is the 10th year of the Addiction Science Awards, which are coordinated by NIDA as well as Friends of NIDA, a private group dedicated to furthering NIDA’s mission. ISEF is the world’s largest science competition for high school students. 

To mark the occasion, Carol Krause, chief of NIDA’s Public Information Liaison Branch, gave a special “Where Are They Now?” presentation. It included excerpts from previous award winners describing how the award has inspired them. In attendance was NIDA’s first winner, Kapil Ramachandran, who is now a Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University. 

KSFY-TV (ABC affiliate in South Dakota) covered the event and interviewed third-place winner Kashfia Rahman as well as Dr. Jack Stein, director of the Office of Science Policy and Communications. This was Rahman’s third time winning the award. 

For information on current and previous award winners, visit https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/public-education-projects/nida-science-fair-award-addiction-science.