64th Annual STS (2004-2005)
Finalists
Timothy Frank Credo

ILLINOIS
Timothy Frank Credo, 17, of Highland Park, studied the speed of secondary particles of light and particle detectors for his Intel Science Talent Search engineering project. Tim sought to develop a more precise method to measure the time in picoseconds (10^-12 seconds) that it takes charged secondary particles of light (such as, pions, kaons, and protons) to travel. To do so, he designed the anode for a particle detector's multi-channel plate. His research proposes a new time-of-flight (TOF) system whereby an energetic secondary particle traversing a microchannel plate window produces Cherenkov light. (Cherenkov light is caused when charged particles move faster than the speed of light.) Tim, as primary author, made a poster presentation of his project at the 2004 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium in Rome. At the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, Tim is a varsity swimmer and participates in the junior academy of science. In his spare time, he enjoys cycling, guitar, piano and economics. He reads French fluently and earned a perfect score of 1600 on his SATs. The son of Dr. Robert and Margaret Credo, Tim hopes to major in physics at Stanford.