International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF)

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The International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) is the world's largest pre-college science fair. Think of it like the Olympics or Super Bowl of science fairs. Millions of students 9-12 grade from over 70 countries, regions, and territories compete in their local, school, regional, state, and national fairs to win a berth to compete at ISEF. In 2024, we had over 1,700 compete and over 3,500 total attendees. Many of the students already have a patent or a patent-pending and present graduate-level or above work as high school students!

General Volunteers: We need over 1,700 general volunteers throughout the week from a 4-hour shift - to the entire week. We will stuff over 10,000 registration bags on Friday, May 9 and registration is open each day. We have events each day and will need roles covered, such as crowd control, working directly with the students from about 70 countries by volunteering in the exhibit hall, helping them set up projects. On Thursday during Fair week, we have between 2,500-3,500 local school children visit on Education Outreach Day. There will be hands-on exhibits, and opportunities for the school children to interact with the Finalists. We will need hundreds of volunteers for this exciting day to highlight STEM in Columbus! We have dozens of other tasks as well. To sign up, go here: www.societyforscience.org/isef/volunteers.

Interpreters: Since we will have students from about 70 countries, we need volunteer (non-technical) interpreters in a couple of dozen languages. The largest need is in the following languages: Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Thai. Others include, but are not limited to Urdu, Indonesian, Filipino, Kazakh, and Turkish. Wednesday, May 14, 2025, between 7:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. - All day would be amazing, but we will take volunteer interpreters in shifts. 7:00 a.m. there will be a breakfast where interpreters and Finalists are introduced and you will get to know them. 8:00 a.m. interpreter and the Finalist will go to the Exhibit hall and they will explain their project. All of the technical terms are on the project and in English, so technical language is not needed. If you have interpreting skills, but cannot help on Wednesday, May 14 or you you want to help in other ways, you can sign up as a general volunteer in one or more of the other areas/days. We will still credential you as an interpreter, but you will help in the area(s) you sign up for and will be pulled to help a finalist with their language needs as they arise.

Judges: We are in need of 1,000 Judges in 22 scientific disciplines on On Wednesday, May 14, 2025. If you are interested in applying as a judge, please indicate this when replying to this listing.

A Grand Award Judge must have at least one of the following

• A minimum of six years related professional experience beyond receiving their B.A., B.S., or Masters degree or
• Have a Ph.D., M.D., or equivalent (D.O., Ed.D., D.D.S., D.V.M., etc.), OR
• Is a graduate student with more than four years of doctoral-level research experience or who is within one year of doctoral dissertation defense.

We look forward to meeting you!