Lincoln High Student to Present at White House

Kaisa Crawford-Taylor, asenior at Lincoln High School in Wisconsin Rapidshas been selected to present at the annual White House Science Fair held on Apr. 13.

At the age of 8, while watching a television special on black holes, Crawford-Taylordecided that she wanted to become a theoretical astrophysicist. At 17, she’s already accomplishing her dream.

Kaisa Crawford-Taylor. (Contributed Photo)

Kasia’s Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS) project uncovers very massive black holes capable of emitting gravitational waves – such as those recently discovered by LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) – using open databases; namely, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey’s tenth data release of quasars and New York University’s Value Added Catalogue. Using the computer language Python, Kaisa created a program that deftly sorted through the combined databases’ 2.7 million galaxies. The program returned a handful of potential binaries, which Kasia analyzed to identify four supermassive black hole binary candidates.

According to a press release by Wisconsin Rapids Public Schools Science Coordinator David Bergerson, "WRPS is extremely proud of Kaisa and congratulate her in being selected to present at the Whitehouse on Wednesday."