Texas Science & Engineering Fair

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2023 Category Awards

2023 Winners

Life Sciences:

Animal Sciences

Senior Division

  • First Place: Melina Kumar | Clear Lake High School | Is Your Cat or Dog Really Spayed: A Novel Test to Diagnose Ovarian Remnant Syndrome

  • Second Place: Akshitha Yarlagadda | Colleyville Heritage High School | Gotta Stay Awake! Determining the Optimal Caffeine Alternative by Investigating the Effects of Select Caffeine Alterations on Drosophila melanogaster Circadian Cycles

  • Third Place: Sanjana Ramineni | Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sciences High School | Glucose on Early Zebrafish Embryos and Pathology

Junior Division

  • First Place: Laila Hamdan and Campbell Speakes | Jerry Knight STEM Academy | The Kitty CATch in Visual Impairment

  • Second Place: Gracelynn Singer | Isbill Junior High School | Home Barn vs Ag Barn

  • Third Place: Jaycee Johns | Freer Junior High | The Dancing LAYdies

Behavioral and Social Sciences

Senior Division

  • First Place: Siddhu Pachipala | Academy of Science and Technology | DSM Diagnosis is Dead: Novel, AI-Powered Biopsychosocial Fingerprinting for depressive, Anxiety, and Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders

  • Second Place: Ria Garg | Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sciences High School | Early Diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Nurses Based on Physical Behavior and Circadian Rythmy Modeled by a Recurrent Neural Network

  • Third Place: Pranav Somani | Academy of Science and Technology | Anxi: A Novel Natural Language Processing System for the Detection and Prevention of Anxiety Disorders

Junior Division

  • First Place: Rahmatoulie Loppy | Baylor College of Medicine Biotech Academy at Rusk Middle School | The Illusory Truth Effect: Influencing Human Health and Behaviors

  • Second Place: Elina Sarkar | Long-View Micro School | Psychology of Censorship

  • Third Place: Aylin Flores| La Joya- Irene Garcia Middle School | Do you got the skills? The proper interview for the best skilled employees

Biochemistry

Senior Division

  • First Place: Halley Compuesto and Rajvi Babaria | Vista Ridge High School | A Novel Approach to Treating Parkinson’s Disease with Amino Acids to Alleviate LRRK2 Gene Mutation Symptoms in C. elegans Evaluated Via the Use of Multidimensional Analysis Methods

  • Second Place: Manyaa Bhatia | Reedy High School | Utilizing a Receptome and Metabolomic Approach to Standardize Novel Early Diagnostic Methodology for Glial Tumors and Alzheimer’s Disease

  • Third Place: Aneesh Mazumder| Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sciences High School | Alternative Translation of the Parkinson’s Associated Protein a-Synuclein

Junior Division

  • First Place: Bisaksha Kc and Iklas Rufai | Harmony School of Innovation Middle School | Dopamine Makes You a Scholastic Machine

  • Second Place: Jiya Joshi, SaiSpoorthi Maram and Anvesha Subramanian | Quail Valley Middle School | A Novel Usage of In Silico Methodology to Inhibit Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

  • Third Place: Riya Singhal | Oakcrest Intermediate School | Using Spherification for Safe and Controlled Delivery of Iron Drops

Biomedical and Health Sciences

Senior Division

  • First Place: Jason Xu | Plano West Senior High School | Proliferous Metabolics

  • Second Place: Vaishnavi Moturi | Centennial High School | GlioGuide: A Multi-Stage, Deep Learning Platform for Rapid Therapy Response Prediction in De Novo Glioblastoma via Computational Modelling of Tumor Heterogeneity

  • Third Place: Shashank Gangaram | Plano East Senior High School | Exploring the relationship between tau and cortical thinning in the development of Alzheimer’s Disease

Junior Division

  • First Place: Nicholas Noring | McCullough Junior High School | How does Direction, Distance and frequency impact sound localization in hearing aid wearer’s vs non hearing aid wearers?

  • Second Place: AnnaSophia Heyne | St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Middle School | The Great Eczemadition

  • Third Place: Madelyn Maldonado | Memorial Middle School | Best Agents for Acid Neutralization

Cellular and Molecular Biology

Senior Division

  • First Place: Zehra Jaffery | Plano West Senior High School | Attenuation of Methylglyoxal Cytotoxicity with Fisetin Rescue in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

  • Second Place: Harsh Singh | Marcus High School | TNF Ligand Promotes Angiogenesis in Triple Negative Breast Cancer Through Activation of Inflammatory Regulatory Networks

  • Third Place: Rashmiya Hasan and Arjun Karthik | Memorial High School | Phagotherapy and Antimicrobial resistance

Junior Division

  • First Place: Rayyan Yaqoob | Good Tree Academy Middle School | Effect of Targeting Multiple Neural Pathways Using Nutraceuticals on Cognition in Drosophila Melanogaster

  • Second Place: Samah Khan | Renaissance Academy Middle School | Effectiveness of Bacteriophage, Antibiotics and Combination Therapy in Eradication of E. Coli

  • Third Place: Abigail Porras | Harmony Science Academy – El Paso Middle School | Antibiotics and its effect on Bacteria

Computational Biology and Bioinformatics

Senior Division

  • First Place: Jaagat Prashar and Jannak Prashar | Jordan High School | Monco: A Novel Deep Learning Pipeline to Predict Drug Candidates for the Inhibition of EZH2 Cofactors in Pediatric Neuroblastoma

  • Second Place: Raghav Ramki | Plano East Senior High School | Decoding Cancer II: Biomarker Based Predictive Modeling of Population Level Signaling for Cancer Treatment Optimization

  • Third Place: Anika Chebrolu | Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sciences High School | DeepLig: A Novel, de-novo Drug Design Platform to Generate Multi-Targeted Drugs Against Glioblastoma

Junior Division

  • First Place: Arnuv Modh | Rice Middle School | An analysis of mRNA backbone in an aqueous solution data: Are there base mutations that make sequences less susceptible to degradation?

  • Second Place: Ian Lee | Seidel Science Academy | Comparing gRNA to be used with CRISPR for Sickle Cell Disease Treatment

  • Third Place: Joaquin Giron | Socorro Middle School | Vitacandy

Earth and Environmental Sciences

Senior Division

  • First Place: Anish Goel and Aditya Singirikonda| Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sciences High School | Comprehensive Dataset Utilizing Meteorological and Topographical Feature Data for Next-Day Wildfire Spread Prediction

  • Second Place: Rishika Porandla | Coppell High School | Climate Change Reimagined: A Novel Visualization of the Influence of Earth’s Precession Index Variations on the Precipitation and Photosynthetic Activity Experienced By Equatorial Regions

  • Third Place: Rishab Ghosh | Academy of Science and Technology | An Analysis Into the Removal of Microplastics from Water Using Oil-based Ferrofluids

Junior Division

  • First Place: Sable Clift | Austin Middle School | Banana pads ?!?

  • Second Place: Mabry Miller | Isbill Junior High School | It’s ALL Up In The Air! A Continued Study on Microplastics: Year 3

  • Third Place: Aditi Pinnenti | Keystone Middle School | Effects of Urbanization on the San Antonio River Water Quality

Microbiology

Senior Division

  • First Place: Shriya Bhat | Plano East Senior HS | Combating Pseudomonas Resistance: Cloning of ampC Gene Encoding for Beta-lactamase in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Computational Mutagenesis of TEM-1 Beta-Lactamase to Identify Potential Allosteric Binding Sites and Inhibitors

  • Second Place: Calvin Carpenter | All Saints Episcopal School High School | Identifying Novel Modes of Inhibition of Curtobacterium pusillum and Bacillus subtilis Bacteria, Against Deadly Bat Fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, (Year 8)

  • Third Place: Benjamin Ding | Colleyville Heritage High School | Investigating the Gut-Brain-Microbiota Axis: The Effect of Prebiotics and Probiotics on Appetite in Drosophila Melanogaster

Junior Division

  • First Place: Taneem Ahmed and Ayman Lough | Renaissance Academy Middle School | Are The Natural Bactericidal Agents as Effective as Bleach?

  • Second Place: Regina Valadez | Harmony Science Academy Laredo- Middle School | Icky Clicky

  • Third Place: Zechariah Carl | Live Oak Classical Middle School | Temperature Effect on an E. coli-based Exoelectrogenic Bacterial Fuel Cell: An Exploration of Microbial Energy Efficiency

Plant Sciences

Senior Division

  • First Place: Prisha Bhat | Plano East Senior High School | Agro-Rhizoremediation: Rhizoremediation with Agro-transformed Oryza sativa to facilitate Arsenic degradation in-situ (Year III)

  • Second Place: Andrew Lopes | Brownsville Hanna Early College High School | Alluring Undergrowth: The effects of magnets on plants

  • Third Place: Aaron Chaloupka | Christ the King High School | Utilizing Soil Moisture Instruments to Illustrate Soil Salinity Variability across Golf Course Fairways

Junior Division

  • First Place: Aariz Karim-Ali | Austin Peace Academy | Soil Fever – A Scientific Analysis of the Effects of Polypropylene (Plastic) on Plants

  • Second Place: Karishma Parghi | Knox Junior High School | The Impact of Black Looseleaf, Caffeinated Tea Grounds as a Fertilizer Additive on the Height of Phaseolus aureus

  • Third Place: Clare McKenna | McCullough Junior High School | What is the Best NPK Ratio for the Most Plant Growth?

Translational Medical Sciences

Senior Division

  • First Place: Sharmada Palakurthi | Ray High School | A translational approach to develop N-acetylneuraminic acid (Neu5Ac) as a biomarker for diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease

  • Second Place: Alanna Polyak | Plano West Senior High School | Investigating the Potentiality of an Alternative, Realistic Cure of Encephalomyelitis disseminata (Multiple Sclerosis) Using the Neoblasts From Dugesia tigrina (Planaria) on Lumbricus terrestris (Earthworms)

  • Third Place: Abby Montemayor and Niraj Srivastava | Keystone Upper School | The Effect of Traumatic Brain Injury and THIP on Short-Term Memory in Drosophila melanogaster using Avesive Phototaxic Suppression

Junior Division

  • First Place: Luke Lamb | Kaffie Middle School | Football Safety: Does a Helmet Protect the Brain?

  • Second Place: Nia Shetty | The Honor Roll School | Gold Nanoshells and Focal Laser Therapy: A Novel Approach to Solid Tumor Treatment

  • Third Place: Samantha Garcia | Brownsville-Manzano Middle School | The Effects of Herbal Infusions on Daphnia Magna

Physical Sciences:

Biomedical Engineering

Senior Division

  • First Place: Rohan Mehta, Roshan Mehta and Shreyas Vatts | Academy of Science and Technology | DiaVest: A Non-invasive Glucose Monitoring System for Diabetes Management

  • Second Place: Anish Kalra, Trishay Naman and Dhroov Pathare | Coppell High School | A Nonmydriatic Retinal Imaging Tool Utilizing Biomarker Characteristics for Broad Spectrum Disease Eye-Dentification via Limited Dataset Categorical Classification and Multi-Disease Diagnosis Deep Learning

  • Third Place: Anushka Aggarwal and Madison Burke | Dulles High School | Using AI to Detect Optical Biomarkers With Fundus Photography to Diagnose Rentinal Diseases

Junior Division

  • First Place: Ellie Chong | Highland Park Middle School | Development of a Portable Solar-Powered Cost-Efficient Sterilization Unit for Use in Developing Countries

  • Second Place: Sanvi Bala | McCullough Junior High School | GastroGuard: Accurate and Efficient Detection of Gastrointestinal Abnormalities Via Machine Learning Analysis of Video Capsule Endoscopy Images

  • Third Place: Ishaan Chaudhary | Fort Settlement  Middle School | Reinventing the Medical Container

Chemistry

Senior Division

  • First Place: Shivani Mundra and Madelynn Puza | Academy of Science and Technology | Engineering a Cost-Effective and Biodegradable Cellulosic Battery Composition

  • Second Place: Arshvi Patel | Colley Ville Heritage High School | Identification of gamma-Hydroxybutric acid (GHB) and gamma-Butyrolactone (GBL) in an Alcoholic Beverage with the use of a Conventional Method of Esterification and the Ferric Hydroxamate Mehanism

  • Third Place: Zaynab Abbas and Yizhen Zhang | Jasper High School | A Study on the Effects of Pleurotus djamor Enzymes in the Breakdown of FOG Hydrocarbons for Water Remediation

Junior Division

  • First Place: Victoria Abarca and Rylie Lieberwirth | Young Women’s Leadership Academy | Determination of Ascorbic Acid through Redox Titration

  • Second Place: Michelle Basi | Brookside Intermediate School | The Effect of Fruit on Metabolism

  • Third Place: Nailah Zubair | Harmony Academy Euless Middle School | Which orange juice has the most vitamin C?

Embedded Systems

Senior Division

  • First Place: Inu Baek and Rohit Pillutla | Academy of Science and Technology | ChroniSense: Developing a Wearable Device for the Dynamic Detection, Tracking, and Mitigation of Chronic Pain

  • Second Place: Sarang Goel | Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sciences High School | IVY: An Intelligent Vision System for the Visually Impaired

  • Third Place: Eunice-Jia-Mi Yong | Westlake High School | Sign Say

Junior Division

  • First Place: Ana Spiride | Rice Middle School | Plam Reading: A Novel Computer Vision Approach to Translating Sign Language

  • Second Place: Levi Leibman and Max Madof | Emery Weiner Jewish School | Searching for life-bearing rocks using a novel Mars magnetometer

  • Third Place: Shruti Paul | Schimelpfenig Middle School | Automated Plant Watering System

Energy: Sustainable Materials & Design

Senior Division

  • First Place: Ricardo Victorio | Academy of Science and Technology | Engineered Phototropism: Improving the Energy Efficiency of Residential-Use Solar Tracking Use Soft-Bodied Thermal Expansion

  • Second Place: Arya Gurumukhi | Plano East Senior High School | A Novel Fe Doped Metal-Oxide Electrode Material for High Energy Densities Within Intercalated Pseudo Supercapacitors

  • Third Place: Patrick Bullock | ColleyVille Heritage High School | Evaluating Electrolytic Additives for Their Ability to Inhibit the Dendritic Growth of Deposits in Zinc-Based Flow Batteries

Junior Division

  • First Place: Asvini Thivakaran | Home School | Piezoelectric Power Generation From Automotive Tires

  • Second Place: Gustavo Mayorga | McAllen – Fossum Middle School | CharEcoal

  • Third Place: Ronit Chheda | Fort Settlement Middle School | Green Hydrogen: The Fuel of the Future

Engineering Technology: Statics and Dynamics

Senior Division

  • First Place: Henry Aceves and Burke Donovan | Academy of Science and Technology | ArmAssist: A Lightweight, Concealable Active Arm Support that Empowers Victims of Muscular Atrophy

  • Second Place: Jessica Bird | Academy of Science and Technology | Cost-effective Sustainable Structural Support Targeted for Use in Economically Disadvantaged Areas based upon DaVinci Self-Supporting Bridge

  • Third Place: Rebecca Garza | Academy of Science and Technology | Minimizing Runway Excursions During Landings Through Oleo Strut Experimentation for Greater Shock Absorption

Junior Division

  • First Place: Ahyan Hassan and Hasan Rizvi | Harmony School of Endeavor Middle School | Project Guidance

  • Second Place: Pranavi Chatrathi | Pioneer Heritage Middle School | Side Impact Car Crash – External Airbag to reduce injury severity

  • Third Place: Sanjay Jaishankar, Aarya Mani and GautamEsvar Manikandan | Imagine International Middle School | Autonomous All Terrain Rover

Environmental Engineering

Senior Division

  • First Place: Evanny Trevino | Jimmy Carter Early College High School | Plastic Waste: A Sustainable Aggregate for Concrete

  • Second Place: Madhalasa Iyer | Plano Senior High School | Maximal Triglyceride Production by Co-cultivation of Isochrysis galbana and Bacillus megaterium for Engineering Third-Generation Biofuels

  • Third Place: Shivani Patel | Clear Creek High School | Utilization of CRISPR and ribonucleoproteins for the modification of the accD gene for the Conservation of Nitrogen in Chlorella Vulgaris

Junior Division

  • First Place: Hiruni Wansapura | Robinson Middle School | Bio-Breeze: A Biodegradable Air Filter Using Snake Plant Cellulose Fibers

  • Second Place: Samarth Menon and Arjun Sharma | Kealing Middle School | CO2 Buster

  • Third Place: Nidhi Ajmera | Otto Middle School | The Light and Shape of Things: The Effect of Roof Shape on Inside Temperature of Houses

Materials Science

Senior Division

  • First Place: Raj Mhetar | Academy of Science and Technology | Synthesis of a Sustainable Bio-Nanocomposite Coating to Reduce Post-Harvest Agriculture Losses

  • Second Place: Shreya Halbe | Plano West Senior High School | Comprehensive Analysis of Microplastic Contamination of Water: The Effects of Zinc Oxide Treated Novel Bio Composites Comprising of Abelmoschus esculentus and Aloe vera

  • Third Place: Abbie Ha | Colleyville Heritage High School | Synthesizing Curcumin-Infused Hydrogel to Inhibit Oral Fungal Formation Caused by Asthma Inhalers

Junior Division

  • First Place: Abhay Tippimath | Pearson Ranch Middle School | The Impacts of Microwave Cooking Relative to Conventional Methods on Protein

  • Second Place: Aika Saadiq | Wilson Middle School | I Can’t Hear: Soundwave Cancellation by Soundproofing Materials in Rooms

  • Third Place: Diego Diaz | John Drugan School | TESTING SELF-MADE BIODEGRADABLE PACKAGING

Mathematics

Senior Division

  • First Place: Shaunak Pandey | Vandegrift High School | Mathematical Modeling of CO2 Migration and Trapping in Geologic Formations for Risk Assessment of Carbon Sequestration impacting Carbon Footprint

  • Second Place: Pranavanath Balamurali | Independence High School | A simple mathematical optimization framework to determine optimal school attendance zones and capacity growth plans

  • Third Place: Albert Jiang | Plano West Senior High School | Finding a Lower Bound for k-Unbounded Hamiltonian Cycles

Junior Division

  • First Place: Sana Kale | Creekside Park Junior High School | Analyzing the Effects of Gender and APOE Genes on AD

  • Second Place: Zoe Alcantar | Seabrook Intermediate | Amazon on a Healthy Economy

  • Third Place: Melek Ozturk | Harmony School of Innovation Middle School | THE AREA ESTIMATION

Physics and Astronomy

Senior Division

  • First Place: Relan Mihir and Yahs Semlani | Debakey High School for Health Professions | A Hierarchical Labeling Deep Learning Framework for Classifying Particle Jets for Generalizable Jet Tagging

  • Second Place: Jesse Miller | Academy of Science and Technology | Investigating the effect of Qubit entanglement on quantum decoherence

  • Third Place: Ava Davies and Sofia Estrada | Brownsville Pace High School | Effects of a biodegradable polymer on synthetic cloth in attempt to reduce microplastics in waste water.

Junior Division

  • First Place: Ali Siddiqui | Austin Peace Academy Middle School | Using Schlieren Imaging to Test the Efficacy of Different Facemasks for Reducing the Transmission of Respiratory Droplets

  • Second Place: Aniket Chakraborty | Knox Junior High School| Analyzing Materials Using Infrared and Optical Spectroscopy

  • Third Place: Evan Cave | San Angelo Home School | Reach for the Stars: Comparing Fin Shapes for Rocket Distance

Robotics and Intelligent Machines

Senior Division

  • First Place: Dhroov Bharatia | Vines High School | VisAide: A Multifaceted Self-Learning AI Assistant for the Visually Impaired Using A Novel Context-Based Approach

  • Second Place: Shobhit Agarwal | Reedy High School | FISQ: A Few-Shot, Interperatable, and Self-Supervised Quantum Machine Learning Approach to Automated Real-time Prediction across Domains

  • Third Place: Ayaan Dhuka, Landon Doughty and Caiman Moreno-Earle | St. John’s School High School | Autonomous, Over the Board Chess Solution for Players in Isolated Conditions

Junior Division

  • First Place: Sheneli De Silva | Young Women’s Academy Middle School | Intelligent Traffic Light System

  • Second Place: Geoffrey Ogbogu | Jerry Knight Stem Academy | The Applications of Autonomous Vehicles

  • Third Place: Hiba Taimoor | Islamic School of Irving Middle School | Copbot: School Security Robot Using Facial Recognition

Systems Software

Senior Division

  • First Place: Rohan Dharia and Videet Mehta | Travis High School | AIM-AI: An AI-Based Natural Language Processing Approach to Reducing Fatal Risks of Medical Imaging in Patients through Automated Imaging Order Selection

  • Second Place: Justin Huang, Sri Kumbham and Dawson Zhang | Academy of Science and Technology | CorX: A Biosensing Application that Utilizes Machine and Deep Learning Algorithms to Predict Cardiac Events and Disease

  • Third Place: Brandy Xie | Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sciences High School | A Novel Automatic SEEG & EEG Pre-Processing Pipeline for optimizing Studies of Deep Brian Signals & Seizure Prediction

Junior Division

  • First Place: Navnith Naveenprabhu | Home School | Plant Life – An app to aid gardeners

  • Second Place: Raeef Dean | League City Intermediate School | Artificial Intelligence for School Safety and Efficiency

  • Third Place: Shruti Sivaraman | Canyon Vista Middle School | DR-Check: A New Method for Detecting Diabetic Retinopathy