Hillary Andales

The Grade 12 student whowon P20 million worth of prizes in a global science competition early this week said she had always looked up to two kinds of stars: one that illuminated the skies and the other, who inspired her with their genius. But Hillary Diane Andales, 18, a student of the Philippine Science High School, Eastern Visayas Campus, in Palo, Leyte, has also been something of a star herself. She bested 11,000 other students from 178 countries in the Breakthrough Junior Challenge Prize, using animation to explain the Theory of Relativity and Equivalence of Reference Frames. “What we observe is always relative to us, relative to our perspective, or relative to our reference frame,” said the girl from Abuyog town. She hoped her award would inspire young people “to look up and be scientists themselves,” she said. “The stars we should look up to.”