2022 Winners
Life Sciences:
Animal Sciences
Senior Division
- First Place: Zaina Siddiqi & Rotem Ris | Academy of Science and Technology | Year III: Optimizing the Bioavailability of Curcumin in Dugesia tigrina as a Model to Mitigate the Negative Effects of Radiotherapy
- Second Place: Vyshnavi Poruri | Lano East Senior High School | Investigating TANK-Binding Kinase 1 as a Neurological Therapeutic Target in a Gain-of-Toxic Function Model of Tauopathy in Caenorhabditis elegans
- Third Place: Cole Triplett | DeKalb High School | A Comparison of Amprolium and Sulfamethazine for Coccidia Control in Sheep
Junior Division
- First Place: Ariana Chaudhary | Keystone Middle School | The Effects of Pulsating Electromagnetic Fields on Cuprizone-Treated Planaria for a Potential Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis
- Second Place: Emma Gentry | Don Haskins PK-8 | Sand Colic Prevention
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Third Place: Emma Baugh | Young Women’s Leadership Academy Middle School | The Effects of Different Types of Fertilizer in Runoff on Microorganisms
Behavioral and Social Sciences
Senior Division
- First Place: Siddhanth Pachipala | Academy of Science and Technology | SuiSensor: A Novel, Low-Cost Machine Learning System for the Early Detection and Tracking of Suicidal Ideation via Computational Linguistics
- Second Place: Sidhya Peddinti | Plano East Senior High School | ParkinSensor II: Computer Vision and Ensemble Machine Learning-Based Incipient Diagnosis for Parkinson’s Disease using Neuromuscular Biomarkers
- Third Place: Mithun Mahesh | Centennial High School | Combating Digital Misinformation – Detecting Fake Data Through the Novel Application of Deep Learning Powered Sentiment Analysis
Junior Division
- First Place: Aditi Venkataraman | McCullough Junior High School | The Effect of Ethnic Proximity on the Ability to Differentiate between Real and Computer-Generated Faces
- Second Place: Francisco Novoa | St. Clare of Assisi Catholic School| A Pre-Text to Crash
- Third Place: Rahmatoulie Loppy| Baylor College of Medicine Biotech Academy at Rusk Middle School | The Effects Of Tone
Biochemistry
Senior Division
- First Place: Rajvi Babaria, Mehak Gaba, & Halley Compuesto | Vista Ridge HS | An integrative approach of utilizing antipsychotic supplements designated for Schizophrenia and endogenous firing rate differential equation models to induce neuronal synaptic activity in PINK-1 gene mutated C. elegans with Parkinson’s disease
- Second Place: Kathia Palacios, Dyllan Lozano-Lomeli, & Ashley Nunez | Brownsville- Pace High School | Space Farmers: An experimental study of the effects of increased CO2(g) on the production and concentration of biomacromolecules of plants
- Third Place: Manyaa Bhatia| Reedy High School | Development of an In-Silico Pipeline for Microbial Life Genome Detection in Blood and Organ Donations
Junior Division
- First Place: Nora Naveen | Harmony Academy – Euless Middle School | BioWarfare: Viruses that kill Bacteria
- Second Place: Anish Sharma | Kealing Middle School | Will Different Quantities of Glycerin Result in a Stronger Arrowroot and Potato Starch Bioplastic?
- Third Place: Ethan Cronkhite | Kaffie Middle School | Tree Leaves: Their Effect on Pool Water pH
Biomedical and Health Sciences
Senior Division
- First Place: Aaron George | St. Dominic Savio Catholic High School | Reusable Screening Method for Malarial Infections from Thin Blood Smear Images Using Convolutional Neural Network
- Second Place: Varun Balaji | Clear Lake High School | Combination of Melatonin & Blue Light Filter to Counter Detrimental Health Effects of Constant Light
- Third Place: Anay Gupta | Texas Academy Of Mathematics And Sciences Hs | Elucidating the Pathways & Genomic Trajectories of Ovarian Cancer Persister Cells: Utilizing Single-Cell Transcriptomic Analysis on Patient Samples and Cell Line Models to Identify Ovarian Cancer Resistance Mechanisms
Junior Division
- First Place: Sharmada Palakurthi | Baker A Middle School | Development of New Biomarker For the Diagnosis of Neurological Diseases
- Second Place: Meghana Renukaprasad | Rice Middle School | Effect of Cell Phone Electromagnetic Radiation and its Impact on the Body
- Third Place: Sanjan Sarang | McCullough Junior High School| Testing the Impact of Food Ingredients, Consumer Products and Their Packaging on the Human Endocrine System
Cellular and Molecular Biology
Senior Division
- First Place: Etash Bhat | Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sciences HS | Conversion of Specific Single-Carbon Compounds to γ-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) Via Native and Heterologous Expression in the Methylococcus Capsulatus Metabolic Biochemical Cascade
- Second Place: Zehra Jaffery | Jasper High School | The Mechanism of Methylmercury Permeation Through the Blood-Brain Barrier using C. elegans
- Third Place: Weixuan Yan | Plano West Senior High School | Optimizing CRISPR-Cas13d RNA Targeting with Machine Learning for Antiviral and Neurodegeneration Therapy
Junior Division
- First Place: Sydney Vincer | Murphy Middle School | Sports Drink For Diabetics: Which One Raises Blood Sugar the Fastest?
- Second Place: Shaye Wirth | Canyon Ridge Middle School | How Does PH Affect Waterborne Bacterial Growth?
- Third Place: Gabriella Garay | Sun Ridge Middle School | Conserving Apples with Vitamins and Supplements
Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
Senior Division
- First Place: Hannah Guan | Basis San Antonio HS | Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (CBIO) | Decoding Genetics of Aging: An Neural Network Interpretation on Age-Associated Biomarker Data
- First Place: Aubree Giselle Marquez | Christ the King High School | Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (CBIO) | The Effect of Different Disinfectant Solutions on ATP levels
- Second Place: Rithvik Ganesh | Plano West Senior High School | Tackling Tau: Experimental Characterization of Inhibitors of the MSUT-2 Protein for the Treatment of Neurodegenerative Diseases (Year 2)
- Third Place: Shreya Amalapurapu | Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sciences H S | Novel-DTI – A Machine Learning Pipeline Created to Predict Drug-Target Interactions for Large-Scale Drug Repurposing and Drug Discovery using Multiplex, Heterogeneous Networks
Junior Division
- First Place: Shaumprovo Debnath | Keystone Middle School | Using Machine Learning and Neural Data from the Brain to Create an Artificial Intelligence Capable of Recognizing Thought Words
- Second Place: Shriya Viswanathan & Saura Agarwal | Renner Midde School | UV Savior
- Third Place: Dhruvesh Ravishankar | Coppell Middle North | Cancer Cop: A Machine Learning Approach to Predict Lung & Colon Cancer
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Senior Division
- First Place: Katherine Lee| Jasper High School | Finding an Accessible, Environmentally Friendly Solution to Water Purification: Testing the Effectiveness of Aloidendron barberae and Bambusa dolichomerithalla as Natural Coagulants on Copper Ion Concentration Using UV-vis Spectrophotometry
- Second Place: Emmy Li | Clear Lake High School | Enhanced CO2 Capture via Carbon Mineralization
- Third Place: Tanuj Tekkale & Shaunak Pandey | Vandegrift High School | Developing a Novel Method for the Reversion of Global Warming via Artificial Stratospheric Aerosol Injection.
Junior Division
- First Place: Kylie Hixson | Laura Bush Middle School | Show You Care By What You Wear
- Second Place: Mabry Miller | Isbill Junior High School | Something Smells Fishy in Micropterus salmoides: A Continued Study on Microplastics
- Third Place: Rhea Chidambaram | Spring Branch Academic Institute Middle School | Megoo (Most Efficient Generator Of Oxygen)
Microbiology
Senior Division
- First Place: Shriya Bhat | Plano East Senior HS | Combating Bacterial Biofilm III: Computational Analysis of the Cystic Fibrosis Lung Microbiome and Development of a Non-toxic Quorum Quenching Cocktail Therapy to Inhibit Multispecies Biofilm Proliferation
- Second Place: Calvin Carpenter | All Saints Episcopal School HS | Determining if Bacterial Genera Found in Natural Bat Roosts Are Known Fungal Inhibitors of Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd) (Y7)
- Third Place: Patrick McKenna | Academy of Science & Technology | Utilizing Antibodies as an Alternative Method for the Identification of Vibrio Cholerae
Junior Division
- First Place: Madeleine Mack | China Spring Middle School | Comparing Oleic Acid and Similarly Structured Cinnamon, Against Sodium Phosphates, Using gallus domesticus to Find a More Natural Preservative that Replaces Unhealthy Sodium Phosphates
- Second Place: Emily Orr | Wiggs Middle School | Which Type of Hand Sanitization is the Most Effective Antiseptic?
- Third Place: Peyton Alexander | Live Oak Classical Middle School | Environmental Phage Growth
Plant Sciences
Senior Division
- First Place: Prisha Bhat | Plano East Senior High School | Rhizoremediation: A Computational Analysis of the Rhizosphere Metagenome and a Wet Lab Approach to Derive an Optimal Strategy for Heavy Metal Remediation In-Situ
- Second Place: Shreya Nair & Siddhartha Shah | Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sciences HS | Identification and Characterization of Genes Functioning with HR4, a Newly Identified Gene Conferring Resistance to the Green Peach Aphid
- Third Place: Simali Shah | Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sciences HS | The Role of Abietane Diterpenoid on Plant Defense and Development
Junior Division
- First Place: Isabella Anderson | Frankford Middle School | Let it Grow
- Second Place: Grace Trees | San Angelo Home Schoolers (6th – 8th)| Why So Dry?: Comparing Soil Amendments to Conserve Water
- Third Place: Vedanth Chakravartula & Abhinav Devarakonda | Pearson Ranch Middle School | What is the Best NPK Ratio for the Most Plant Growth?
Translational Medical Sciences
Senior Division
- First Place: Maya Shah | Martin STEM School | Masking Policy and Covid-19 Positivity Rate in Texas School Districts
- Second Place: Sharanya Sharma | Health Careers HS | Evaluating Perceptions of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga Practitioners on Physical and Psychological Well-Being via Mixed Methods Study For Intervention as a Therapeutic Adjuvant
- Third Place: Emmanuel Roy, Kevin Zheng, & Dhiraj Dayal Bijinepally | Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sciences HS | A Cost-Effective Method of Diagnosing Basal Cell Carcinoma and Various Diseases by Utilizing MAP: Machine Assisted Pathology
Junior Division
- First Place: Elizabeth Reilly | Saint Matthew’s Catholic School | Using Every Possible Pathway: A Natural Way of Battling COVID-19 Inflammation-Related Complications
- Second Place: Kaitlyn Fan | Rice Middle School | A Machine Learning Approach to Diagnose and Categorize Alzheimer’s Disease
- Third Place: Erik Zuniga | Brownsville- Faulk Middle School | The Battle of the Repellents
Physical Sciences:
Biomedical Enigneering
Senior Division
- First Place: Anushka Aggarwal & Madison Burke | Dulles HS | Using AI to Detect Morphological Abnormalities of Leukocytes to Diagnose Leukemia
- Second Place: Eshan Singhal | The Oakridge School | SIDS Mattress: Determining Infant Physiological Parameters with PVDF Sensors and Microphones to Detect SIDS with OCC Modeling
- Third Place: Amie Ha| Holleyville Heritage High School | Preventing Bacterial Formation Through the Application of Cationic Polymers to Electrospun Polyvinyl Alcohol
Junior Division
- First Place: Haley McCallick | Laura Bush Middle School | Saving a Life by Sealing a Battery
- Second Place: Harini Venkatesh | Rice Middle School | The Comptometrist: Diagnosing Astigmatic Power with Computer Vision
- Third Place: Lucille Lopez | Baylor College of Medicine Biotech Academy at Rusk Middle School| Do Liquids Change Our Fingerprints?
Chemistry
Senior Division
- First Place: Aseel Rawashdeh | Anderson Hs | Low-cost Electrochemical Arsenic Detection (LEAD): A Novel Quantitative, Portable, and Ultra-Sensitive Arsenic Sensor Using Pencil Lead
- Second Place: Kevin Sun | Plano West Senior High School | Transforming Organic Wastes into High Value Bioplastics
- Third Place: Hannah Lee | Westwood Hs | Synthesis and Application of Diazirine Photocrosslinker-containing DNA
Junior Division
- First Place: Sai Balaji | Knox Junior High School | Which Fruit has the Highest Amount of Vitamin C? (Organic and Non-Organic Fruits)
- Second Place: Addison Binford | Peet Junior High School | How Sweet It Is!: Tea Tester
- Third Place: Alexia Guevara | Wiggs Middle School | The Soapy Showdown
Embedded Systems
Senior Division
- First Place: Emily Troutman | Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sciences HS | Optimizing Micro-Computer Architecture in the Arithmetic Logic Unit
- Second Place: Sarang Goel | Coppell High School | IVY: INTELLIGENT VISION SYSTEM ENABLING INDEPENDENT MOBILITY FOR THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED – An Innovative AI-Based System with a Low-Cost Head-Mounted Wearable Device, Instantaneous Guidance System with Vibration Feedback, and User-Friendly Smartphone App
- Third Place: Anushka Sridhar | Plano East Senior High School | VIPR – Vibration Induced Parkinson’s Relief
Junior Division
- First Place: Ana Spiride | Rice Middle School | drEYEve: A Novel Gaze-Controlled Movement System
- Second Place: Aayush Jetly | Friendswood Junior High School | An Affordable, Machine-learning Aided Computer Application for Detecting Prolonged Dampness in Hard to Access Areas of the House
- Third Place: Suhana Arora | Hunt Middle School | ISEE – I See Everything & Everyone
Energy: Sustainable Materials & Design
Senior Division
- First Place: Otto Beall | Plano East Senior High School | Redesigning Surface Conduction Manifolds to Improve the Efficiency and Reliability of Solar Panels
- Second Place: Drishti Gupta | Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sciences HS | Density Functional Study Determining Group 13 Periodic Trends for the More Accurate Prediction of Optimal Triel-Based Catalyst Models for Methane Activation and Functionalization
- Third Place: Nandini Ramachandran | Plano West Senior High School | Building a Dual-Axis Solar Tracker Enabled by a Gradient Boosting ML Model to Increase the Electricity Generated by Solar Panels
Junior Division
- First Place: Arya Gurumukhi | Otto Middle School | Supercapacitors – Improving upon the Lithium- Ion Battery Technology
- Second Place: Asvini Thivakaran | Cedar Valley Middle School | Piezoelectric Power Generation from Automotive Tires
- Third Place: Aditi Srivastava | Robinson Middle School | Raising the Roof: The Effect of Different Roofing Materials on the Thermal Performance Inside Houses
Engineering Mechanics
Senior Division
- First Place: Elizabeth Evertson | Waterloo HS | Negative Pneumatic Driven Bipedal Movement Foam Actuators
- Second Place: Jessica Bird | Academy of Science and Technology | Instrumented Walking Cane for the Visually Impaired
- Third Place: Ved Ganesh | Dulles HS | Stable Shores: An Experimental Set-Up to Optimize Parameters for Coastal Erosion Control Structures
Junior Division
- First Place: Frank Lucci | Basis San Antonio | MediWing – an Efficient, Inexpensive, Adaptable, Long-Range Medical Package Delivery Plane
- Second Place: Gautam Esvar Manikandan, Sanjay Jaishankar, Aarya Mani | Imagine International Middle School | Hydraulic Submarine with SONAR
- Third Place: Daniella Aburto | McCullough Junior High School | A Light Amidst The Storm
Environmental Engineering
Senior Division
- First Place: Aneesh Vanguri | Westwood High School | Optimizing Irrigation Through Soil Moisture Imaging
- Second Place: Allison Barnes | UTPB STEM Academy (Senior Division) | Solar Heat Updraft Tower with Wind Augmentation
- Third Place: Ada Wang, Olivia Ye | Academy of Science and Technology | Sea it to Believe it: Machine Learning-Based Prediction of Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) Intensity
Junior Division
- First Place: Tavishi Sinha | Quail Valley Middle School | Finding a Sustainable Carbon Sequestration Solution Through Growing Algae on Hydroponic Surfaces
- Second Place: Evanny Trevino | Memorial Middle School | Plastic Waste: A Sustainable Aggregate for Concrete
- Third Place: Soaham Kumar | Santa Gertrudis Middle School | Engineering an Eco-Friendly and Wind-Resistant Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) for Hurricane Proof Home
Materials Science
Senior Division
- First Place: Samuel Fierro | El Paso Home School Science HS | Chameleon Roof: The high-performance future of cool roofs
- Second Place: Alan Wang | Westlake HS | Three-Dimensional Hierarchical Porous Electrode Structure for Improved Performance in Battery Applications
- Third Place: Shivani Nathan | Jasper HS | Agricultural Crop Residues as Alternative Sources of Cellulose for Future Use in Thermoresponsive Hydrogels
Junior Division
- First Place: Pavan Ahluwalia | Harmony School of Innovation – Fort Worth | Correlation Relating Morphology and Optoelectronic Properties of Microscale Zinc Oxide for Use in Antibacterial Assays
- Second Place: Aika Mamdhooh Saadiq | Wilson Middle School | “Cool” Homes
- Third Place: Lekisha Nagpal | York Junior High School | Synthesizing a Natural Effective Ultraviolet Blocking Sunscreen through the Testing of Ultraviolet Detecting Methods
Mathematics
Senior Division
- First Place: Shreya Chaudhary | Keystone Upper School | Effects of SASH-1 Mutations on Cancer Survival
- Second Place: Jonathan Abreu | Vista Ridge HS | A Statistical Analysis of Chess Openings
- Third Place: Ria Garg & Nora Xiao | Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sciences Hs | A Graph-Theoretic Approach Using Monte Carlo Simulations to Model the Progression of Mental Health in Social Networks
Junior Division
- First Place: Audrey Tremont | Seabrook Intermediate | Does a Baseball Formula Apply to Softball?
Physics and Astronomy
Senior Division
- First Place: Prisha Singh | Plano East Senior HS | Lost in SPA-CE: the Spatial Positioning Apparatus for Cosmic Expansion
- Second Place: Bhargav Annem | Lasa HS | Phase space and orbital evolution of a satellite galaxy in a dynamically perturbed Milky Way stellar disc
- Third Place: Mustafa Haque | Plano East Senior HS | Lunar Groundtracking and Landing Trajectories
Junior Division
- First Place: Delilah Amador | Young Women’s Leadership Middle School | Testing the Efficacy of Face Mask Materials
- Second Place: Aarsh Shekhar | Pearson Ranch Middle School | Springing Into Motion! The Computational Physics and Applications of Hooke’s Law and Harmonic Motion
- Third Place: Garron Anderson | Classical Conversations Home School Middle School | Calibrating a Forty Meter Dipole Antenna
Robotics and Intelligent Machines
Senior Division
- First Place: Allen Shen | Clear Lake High School | Simulation of Abnormal Crouch Gait and Development of a Torque-Additive Technique for Rehabilitation
- Second Place: Shobhit Agarwal | Reedy High School | OmniDoc: A Multimodal Quantum Machine Learning Approach to Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Treatment Prediction for Neurodegenerative and Cancerous Diseases
- Third Place: Saket Bala | Academy of Science and Technology | Glio-No-Mo: The Development of a Novel Time and Cost Effective Method for Early Detection of Glioblastoma Tumors via Machine Learning Analysis of Ophthalmoscope Readings and Optimization of Artificial Intelligence Algorithms
Junior Division
- First Place: Dhroov Bharatia | Wilson Middle School | QuakeWake: AI to the Rescue
- Second Place: Rayhan Papar | McCullough Junior High School| Building a Distress Detector Using NLP and Computer Vision
- Third Place: Shaivi Moparthi | The Kinkaid School Middle School | PinkRibbon: A Novel Method for Breast Cancer Detection using Machine Learning and Convolutional Neural Networks
Systems Software
Senior Division
- First Place: Shoumik Roychowdhury | Westwood HS | Xnet: A Novel Machine Learning Model for Fast MRI Reconstruction
- Second Place: Grace Yuan, Ruihan Ma, Dawson Zhang | Academy of Science and Technology | Simulating The Transmission of Viruses
- Third Place: Ron Asoulin-Handelman Yavneh | Academy of Dallas | Path2Math: v1
Junior Division
- First Place: Uma Sthanu | Canyon Middle School | Sayffer: Digital Transformation of K-12 health data that allows for secure and compliant collaboration between parents, staff & students
- Second Place: Grant Brannan| McAllen- Cathey Middle School | The Worst Time to Say: Stay Positive
- Third Place: Anika Gopal| Renner Middle School | Python Website Blocker
