United States Awarded Five Medals in the 36th International Physics Olympiad

Representatives of the 2005 U.S. Physics_Team won five medals at the 36th International Physics Olympiad held July 3-12 in Salamanca, Spain. Eric Mecklenburg and Men Young Lee were awarded gold medals, Timothy Credo and Nickolas Fortino received silver medals, and Daniel Whalen won the bronze medal. See pictures of the winning team!

U.S. Representatives

The selection process for the 2005 U.S. Physics_Team began in January, when high school physics teachers from throughout the country nominated over 1400 physics students to be members of the 2005 team. The first round of exams in late January produced approximately 200 semifinalists who were given a second exam in March. Each semifinalist, their nominating teacher, and their school received special prizes.

The 24 members of the 2005 U.S. Physics_Team were selected from the group of semifinalists based on their screening exams, transcripts, and letters of recommendation. The members of the team met at the University of Maryland for an intensive one-week training camp May 14-23. The activities at the camp included tutorials, laboratories, problem sets, exams, and guest lectures on topics such as neutrino physics, microchip fabrication, scanning tunneling electron microscopy, and solar physics.

On Wednesday afternoon the team members traveled to Washington, D.C., and were honored with a "Tribute to the U.S. Physics_Team 2005" ceremony on Capitol Hill. The May 18 ceremony was sponsored by AAPT and the American Institute of Physics (AIP), and was co-hosted by Reps. Vern Ehlers (R-MI) and Rush Holt (D-NJ), the two physicists in Congress. In conjunction with the ceremony, Rep. Ehlers also placed a statement in the Congressional Record, congratulating the Team.

At the end of the training camp, five members were selected to represent the U.S. Physics_Team. The five U.S. representatives who traveled to Spain are: Timothy Credo, nominated by Laura Nickerson at the Illinois Math & Science, Aurora,IL; Nickolas Fortino, nominated by J. Peter Watt at the Phillips Academy, Andover, MA; Menyoung Lee, nominated by John Dell at Thomas Jefferson HSST, Alexandria,VA; Eric Mecklenburg, nominated by Robert Shurtz at the Hawken School, Gates Mills, OH; and Daniel P Whalen, nominated by J. Peter Watt at the Phillips Academy, Andover,MA.