Wehr's award a repeat

Odessa High School senior and Advanced Science Research Laboratory student Thorsen Wehr has again been selected to receive the Washington State Academy of Sciences Award. Since he had already participated in the American Junior Academy of Sciences Convention in Chicago last year, he declined this year’s invitation to the convention, so that another student might share the scientific opportunity that he had experienced.

The American Junior Academy of Sciences is America’s only honor research society for high school scientists, and Wehr earned his membership last winter. The honor comes from Dr. James Krueger, chairman of the Academy’s Award Selection Committee. Wehr represents Odessa High School, Educational Service District 101 in Spokane and the state of Washington as a leader in science research. Through the two groups, Wehr has become a member of the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society and has recently had his research accepted for publication in Sigma Xi’s Chronicle of the New Researcher.

His research project, entitled “The Generation and Analysis of Sound Waves with Varying Nonlinearity” and the international recognition he received from it, helped secure this award. Nonlinear waves have increased amplitude, cover a smaller area than linear waves and behave differently quantified by a novel formula derived by Wehr.

Practical applications of his research consist of a variety of medical uses; nonlinear beam-forming arrays; military non-invasive strikes through the air, water, or solids; and mapping the ocean floor. New biological models have proposed that solitons are produced in proteins and DNA, and the brain may send signals using them.

Thorsen and his science teacher, mentor and father, Jeff Wehr, will travel to the Museum of Flight in Seattle for the Seventh Annual Meeting and Symposium of the Washington State Academy of Sciences as honored guests September 18, 2014, to receive the award.