Brendon Matusch takes home Top Honours at EU Science Competition!

The top prizes in this year’s European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS) were awarded yesterday and a local Sudburian came out on top!

Brendon Matusch made waves this past spring when he took home the top prize at the 2018 Canada-Wide Science Fair with his self-driving go-kart that uses a machine learning system. Matusch’s project was given the platinum award for best intermediate project, as well as the best project award.

In addition to a cash prize, he also won a fully funded trip to compete in the 2018 EUCYS in Dublin, Ireland held this past week. Matusch once again presented his project entitled “Development of an Autonomous Vehicle Using Machine Learning”, once again taking home first place.

The European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS) was launched with the aim of encouraging young people to get involved in science and eventually embark on a career in research. The contest is part of the Science with and for Society activities managed by the Directorate – General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission. EUCYS, which was staged in Dublin’s RDS for 2018, is open to contestants in Europe and other countries throughout the world where national science competitions are staged.

This summer, Matusch joined the PICO collaboration at SNOLAB where he used machine learning techniques on acoustic data collected last year, with the goal of improving the current differentiation between background and signal events for the PICO detector.

Matusch wasn’t the only Canadian to take top honours, Nicholas Fedrigo of Cordova Bay, British Columbia, also won for his project entitled “Improving Spinal Fusions: Redesigning the Pedicle Probe to Prevent Vertebral Breaches.” Fedrigo devised a probe with the potential to make spinal fusions more successful.

For additional information and interview requests, please contact:

Samantha Kuula
Senior Communications Officer
SNOLAB
Samantha.Kuula@snolab.ca
(705) 692-7000 x2222