Catherine Wong

Catherine Wong, 17, was a finalist in the 2013 Intel Science Talent Search, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious high school science research competition. Catherine, of Morristown, NJ, created two novel prototypes for wireless, mobile phone-based telemedicine devices. She taught herself how to work with microprocessors and develop software for mobile devices to make a prototype of a Bluetooth-enabled stethoscope. After testing the efficacy of that invention, she built a second prototype that sends real-time digitized EKG results to a mobile phone. Catherine plans to build an entire suite of wireless telemedicine devices for use in third world countries. Catherine’s prototypes, which cost less than $250 to produce, have each been submitted for patents. Catherine writes both fiction and nonfiction, and has been published in five national publications. She is also the founder and manager of Better Than Wikinotes, an online database for students to share academic notes.