Professional Activities
April 1, 2019
On March 22, Fitch Even patent agent Thomas A. James served as a special judge at the 69th Annual Chicago Public Schools Student Science Fair at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Designated as the 2019 Exhibition of Student Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Research, this year’s theme was “Exploring the Unexplored Through STEM.”
Tom joined other patent practitioners and local law school students to review the exhibits and select the recipients of special awards sponsored by the Chicago Intellectual Property Alliance (CIPA). For the sixteenth consecutive year, CIPA awarded cash prizes for the three “Most Inventive” entries, as well as assistance with the preparation and filing of a patent application to one of the winning students.
Over 300 middle-school and high-school students were previously selected from a field of thousands of local participants in nine regional science fairs to present their projects and accompanying papers at the citywide science fair. The CIPA judges sought out the most innovative projects among these, interviewing many of the student exhibitors as part of the judging process.
After evaluating many noteworthy contenders, the CIPA judges awarded the prizes to the following students:
- First place went to Aneesh Anagha from Walter Payton College Prep for her project “Nanomedicine: a Study of Exosomal Endocytosis.”
- Second place was awarded to Sofia Rogel from Von Steuben High School for the second year running, this year for her project “Thermo-Dynamic Joint Contracture Brace.”
- Third place went to Abhishek Joshi from Lane Tech High School for his project “Effect of Temperature on Algal Photosynthesis.”
For more information on this annual event, please visit the Chicago Public Schools Student Science Fair website.
Fitch, Even, Tabin & Flannery is a cofounder of CIPA. Fitch Even partner Joseph T. Nabor is a current CIPA board member and partner Steven G. Parmelee served as co-chair of the Science Fair Committee from 2006 to 2017.
