For the first time in Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology’s nine-year history, the contest’s grand prizes were taken home by girls. In a first for the famous U.S. competition for high school students, girls proved more brilliant than boys in both the individual and team categories.

The individual top prize went to a senior at Freedom High School in Bethlehem, Pa., Isha Jain, who received a $100,000 scholarship for a research into bone growth. In the team category, the $100,000 scholarship award was split between Janelle Schlossberger and Amanda Harinoff, both seniors at Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School in Plainview, New York. The two-girl team won the contest’s team grand prize for a research on tuberculosis.

Results of the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology were announced on December 3, when everybody was surprised by the all-girl line-up from the dais. Fortunately, it was a positive surprise, as the contest’s results represented one more proof that the gap between women and men in professional math, science and computer fields is eventually closing.

Although this sounds rather like a stereotype, in 2005 a Harvard President, called Lawrence Summers, suggested that the lack of top female scientists may stem in part from biological difference between men and women. Although she was very surprised by her win (“I came in here thinking I had no chance at all,” taking into account that “The caliber of the project is absolutely phenomenal.”), when asked to tell her opinion about Lawrence Summers’ strange suggestion, Isha Jain said she vehemently disagreed. Though, she admitted with some annoyance that "the guy-to-girl ratio in math and science competitions is absolutely ridiculous. It's usually seven or eight guys to one girl."

The ninth edition the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology proved once again that girls are at least as brilliant as boys when it comes to math and technology and that the difference between the two genders is triggered in fact by their interests.