A West Virginia student is competing in Washington, D.C. this week for a share of more than $630,000 in prize money from the Intel Science Talent Search, one of the oldest and most prestigious high school science competitions.
Vincent Jacob O’Leary, 17, from Wheeling is a student at Wheeling Central Catholic High School. For his project, he focused on the behavior of two species of invasive crayfish, Orconectes rusticus and Orconectes virilis.
“What I’ve done is look at invasive species of crayfish and what we can do to deal with invasive species and, for that work, I get to come here and be part of this,” O’Leary told MetroNews on Monday.
“Basically, they cause a lot of problems environmentally and economically and I was just kind of observing them to see how we could stop them.”
He started the observation work in his family’s basement in 2009 and found that one species of crayfish, O. rusticus, is only excessively aggressive toward native crayfish once it has secured shelter.
O’Leary used radio transmitters to track the other species, O. virilis, and found that they prefer stagnant stream beds with ample silt.
The results of his research suggest the way to deter invasive crayfish, which cause an estimated $120 billion in damages across the U.S. every year, is to maintain healthy streams to eliminate the silt substrate, an underlayer.
“I started in my basement and I was in my basement for three years and I’m still competing on this national and international level,” O’Leary says of where his work has taken him.
He is one of 40 students vying for the prize money for research. The Grand Prize winner for the Intel Science Talent Search will receive $100,000. The event continues through Wednesday.
The other research projects deal with breast cancer treatments and therapies, optimizing algae biofuels, indoor air contamination filtration and others.
O’Leary is an Eagle Scout and employee at the Oglebay Good Zoo. He is captain of the swim team at Wheeling Central and is involved in schools plays.
He says he plans to continue following the research path when he moves on the college. “It just really caught my interest and I think I’m in a better situation than most people to say that I really know what I want to do right now,” O’Leary said.”