These Indian-American whiz kids make India proud at Intel ISEF Awards 2016

The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the largest international pre-college science competition in the world, was held in the US on May 24. Students from across the globe participated in Intel’s prestigious science and engineering fair. The ISEF was organized by Society for Science & the Public in partnership with the Intel Foundation in Phoenix.

Among the students, there were from India and of Indian-origin who took part in the event. Several of them have emerged winner in the science competition. The winners belong to 9th through 12th grades. To be able to compete at the Intel ISEF Awards 2016, they won top prizes at a local, regional, state or national science fair.

17-year old Shreyas Kapur of Modern School Barakhamba Road, New Delhi won the third award in the biomedical engineering category. The USD 1,000 prize was awarded to him for his work on cellphone based optometry using hybrid images. 15-year-old Suhani Sachin Jain and 16-year-old Divya Kranthi from Centre Point School in Nagpur also won the third prize of USD 1,000. They had worked on innovative strategy using endophytes for effective biocontrol of insect pests in cotton.

In the Translational Medical Science category, 18-year-old Vasudev Malyan from Maharaja Agarsain Public School, New Delhi won the third prize. He had carried out a diagnostic test for multiple sclerosis using a novel paper sensor. Apart from these Indian students, many Indian-origin students fron the US and Australia emerged winner at the Intel ISEF.

17-year-old Swetha Revanur from Evergreen Valley High School, San Jose, California was awarded with the Dudley R Herschbach SIYSS Award. The SIYSS is a multi-disciplinary seminar that highlights some of the major remarkable achievements of young scientists from across the world. She won for a machine learning framework for multi-omics discovery and characterisation of gene co-alterations impacting disease.

18-year-old Rajeev Jha, who is the President of the Theodore Roosevelt High School in Honolulu, Hawaii, got no less than three awards. He won in the trip to EU contest for biochemical characterization and imaging of arc: ‘Insights into Neurodegeneration and Alzheimer’s Development’. He also won two awards in the behavioral and social sciences category, including the Intel ISEF Best of Category Award of USD 5,000. Prashant Godishala of Breck School in Golden Valley, Minnesota won best of category award of $5,000.