GeoBadger sits with Michelle Obama at the State of the Union Address

February 27th 2010 Simon Kuran
Awards, Natural & Physical Sciences
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Gabriela Farfan will be a guest at the President's State of the Union Address.
Gabriela Farfan will be a guest at the President's State of the Union Address.

Gabriela Farfan is a 19-year-old from Madison, Wisconsin whose passion for geology started at a young age — collecting rocks as a little girl with her father.

Gabriela has been a friend of the UW Geology Museum since she was 7 years old and her personal mineral collection is very impressive.

While in high school, Gabriela studied in the Department of Geoscience with Professor Huifang Xu, researching the causes of color in gems (Oregon sunstone). She presented a poster in the UW Geology Graduate Student research symposium and at the international Goldschmidt Conference.

In 2009, as a senior in high school, Gabriela's hard-work and research won her one of the top awards in the Intel Science Talent Search, winning a scholarship for her independent research describing why certain gemstones appear to change color when viewed from different angle.

This finding directly affects the gemstone industry and may have applications in the nano- and materials sciences.

Gabriela is now in college as a freshman at Stanford University, and a declared geology major.

Gabriela is also a National Hispanic Scholar awardee, has two very proud parents, Abigail Farfan and Carlos Peralta, and has a real dedication to the arts: singing, drawing, painting, speaking French and Spanish, and following operas and musicals.

Story in the Wisconsin State Journal: Second local woman to attend State of Union as first lady's guest