Jesse Shepherd the Grand Champion!

Jesse Shepherd is at it again! He recently participated in the Central Utah Science and Engineering Fair. After the "Stay Home, Stay Safe" orders were issued, BYU decided to continue to hold the science fair. However, rather than doing all of the judging in person like they had previously planned, they decided to have all of the students submit images of their project concept board, as well as their research plans, abstracts, and answers to prompts from the judges. This process took about a week, after which the judges made final decisions on awards. Jesse was selected as the winner of the U.S. Metric Association Award for the extensive use of the Metric System, 1st Place Plant and Animal Science Winner, and CUSF Grand Champion. Along with these awards, CUSF is presenting him with a $300 check. Also going along with being the Grand Champion, it granted Jesse the opportunity to travel to Anaheim, California for the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair. This would be his second time attending the fair, along with 2,000 other students from 82 countries throughout the world. Sadly, because of the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, Regeneron and the Society for Science and the Public have decided to cancel the fair for this year. The Society has made them Alumni and the title of "Finalist" to Regeneron ISEF 2020. Jesse hopes to return to the fair next year after testing for four more infectious poultry diseases and viruses, as well as refining the current egg yolk test, and testing the shelf-life of blood serum for the detection of antibodies: all of this equating to over 3,000 data points. WHAT A ROCKSTAR!!