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Olivia Hallisey is already doing that—and she's not even eighteen. At just 16 years old, Olivia became the Grand Prize Winner for the 2015 Google Science Fair, an online competition for students aged 13-18. The contest was held just last week, and Olivia beat out the other 21 competitors to nab the coveted trophy made from LEGOs—plus a $50,000 scholarship for college.

A junior at Greenwich High School in Connecticut, Olivia won for the new Ebola test she designed. Not only does it determine a result 20 times faster than the previously used test (it takes just 30 minutes instead of 12 hours), it also costs only a tiny fraction of the price ($25 compared to $1,000). Even better? Because Olivia found a way to stabilize the chemicals in the test by using silk fibers in her cardstock, the test can be left out for several weeks before it's used instead of requiring constant refrigeration. Basically, she created a faster, cheaper and easier test—and all while still in high school.

Though Olivia hasn't had the chance to test it on real ebola patients, the test works to determine the presence of a protein from the virus—and can also be adapted to detect HIV, Lyme disease, Dengue fever, Yellow fever and even certain types of cancers. "What affects one country affects everyone," Olivia shared when talking about her project. "W have to work together to find answers to the enormous challenges that threaten global health, our environment and our world."

This girl is definitely finding answers. For more info on her project, check out her Google Science Fair page here or watch her finalist entry video below.

What's the best science project you've ever worked on? What would you like to experiment on or research?

Photos credit: Google Science Fair, Google

by Alexa Matthews | 2/1/2016