Indiana STEM students earn national honors
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Two high school students from Indiana are among the winners of this year’s National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium in Virginia. The event is billed as the premier showcase of original STEM research by high school students and awarded more than $200,000 in scholarships and cash awards this year.
The competition is administered by the National Science Teaching Association with support from the U.S. Department of Defense and hosted this year by the U.S. Navy.
The 48 national winners first presented their original scientific research at regional competitions throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Five finalists from each region were selected, with the top two finalists giving oral presentations for a chance to win scholarships and the remaining three competing in a poster competition for cash awards.
Minnie Liang, a student at West Lafayette Jr/Sr High School was one of the eight first place winners for her oral presentation, “Identification of Pancreatic Cancer Driver Genes with a Novel Machine Learning Approach: Principal Features.”
Liang received a $12,000 scholarship for her presentation. The award comes a few months after Liang was named a candidate for the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program.
Additionally, Sneha Vashistha from Carmel High School received a $450 cash award for her second-place poster presentation.
“Every year we are astounded by the high quality of research conducted by our students and their ability to devise solutions to today’s most pressing challenges,” JSHS Project Manager Andrea Malenya said in a news release. “We are honored to support them as they continue to pursue STEM by providing undergraduate scholarships and the opportunity to connect with top Department of Defense STEM professionals.”
In all, the competition awarded $192,000 in scholarships and nearly $11,000 in cash awards. You can connect to the full list of winners by clicking here.