As both the home of the Academy Awards and 16-time NBA champions, the Lakers, Los Angeles is a city of success. Recently, a new winner was introduced to L.A. — senior Julia Cline.

Cline won second place from the U.S. Air Force in her field at the Intel International Science Fair in Los Angeles May 8 to 13. She competed against approximately 30 students from all over the world in the Earth and Planetary Sciences category.

“It was a competition where all of the people in my category were eligible for this award,” Cline said. “They were from everywhere around the world, including Jordan, China and Japan.”

Cline qualified for the Intel Fair after her project, “Earth’s Magnetosphere as a Complex Network,” won the grand prize at the Science Montgomery fair in March. Her project explores the interaction between solar wind and the earth’s magnetic field.

After Cline’s project won the grand prize at the local fair, she still had improvements to make before competing in the Intel Fair.

“I added a lot of background information that was missing,” she said. “I needed to make my proof that it was a network a lot more rigorous.”

Although she is finished with formal competitions, Cline will continue to focus on the earth’s magnetic field. She plans to publish a paper this summer with a professor on the earth’s magnetic field and is considering studying astrophysics at Williams College in the fall.

In the meantime, Cline will enjoy her second place prize of a medallion, a plaque, a certificate of recognition and $1,500 dollars from the Air Force.

“I actually plan to save it,” Cline said. “I’m going to use it to pay for flying lessons to get my private pilot license.”