Jack Andraka, Maryland’s boy wonder, on mean scientists, homecoming and tricorders; Washington Post, 12/2/13

Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post; Jack Andraka, Maryland’s boy wonder, on mean scientists, homecoming and tricorders:

"While on summer break in 2011 at age 15, Jack Andraka made a breakthrough in cancer detection that had eluded pharmaceutical companies and legions of PhDs.

Using information he found on Google and Wikipedia (which he calls “a teenager’s best friend”), Andraka, who lives in Anne Arundel County, came up with an idea for a diagnostic test for pancreatic cancer that he says is 168 times faster, 400 times more sensitive and 26,000 times more economical than the medical standard...

You came out to your family and friends when you were 13. Was it a hard decision?

I was really afraid of coming out as gay because there are no gay scientists. At all. It is somewhat terrifying. I was at all these science fairs and I’m like, ‘Where are the gays?’ I couldn’t see any role models. Well, there’s, like, Alan Turing [the computer scientist], but he’s dead. After I got the Intel prize, a lot of other gay teenagers messaged me on Facebook telling me how inspiring it was and so it’s been really great. . . . But I still have yet to find another gay scientist...

[A 12/3/13 commenter, proudgovtemployee, posted: "Jack, there are many of LGBT scientists who are leaders in their field including Tim Gill, software pioneer, philanthropist and Quark, Inc founder; Lynn Conway, pioneering computer scientist who developed VLSI and multiple-issue dynamic instruction scheduling; Anthony Gingiss, aerospace engineer and GPS IIF developer and tester; and James Nowick, protein biologist and disease researcher. For more, check out www.noglstp.org (national organization of gay and lesbian scientists and technical professionals) engineers of the year and scientists of the year."]