Grand Awards
Elementary Division
Dewey & Susan Ryals Memorial Elementary Award
| Madeline Branch | Dobson Elementary – Dobson (Surry) | Three “Chews” for Milk |
| Cora Kite | Combs Elementary – Raleigh (Wake) | Wayfaring White Sharks |
| Haley Yi | Hortons Creek Elementary – Cary (Wake) | Which flour is the best for Mochi? |
| Advaitha Nithin | I-SS Virtual Academy – Mooresville (Iredell) | Green Guardians vs. Tiny Terrors |
| Isabella Gorbatovski | West Lake Elementary – Apex (Wake) | The Amazing Hand (DIY Robotic Hand) |
Junior Division
ThermoFisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge (JIC) Nomination
| Leyla Bozkurt | Al-Iman School – Raleigh (Wake) | Bionic Plants: Wireless Bioelectronic Connections with Plants | |
| Rutwa Patil | Metrolina Reg Scholars Academy – Charlotte (Mecklenburg) | Breaking Down Plastics Puzzle! | |
| Saumya Wagh | Davis Drive Middle – Cary (Wake) | Gripping New Opportunities – Harnessing Gecko Leg Biomimicry for Prosthetics | |
| Bailey Heape | Table Rock Middle – Morganton (Burke ) | Gelling Together: A Study of Hydrogels in Farming | |
| Sanvi Asaigoli | Carnage Middle – Raleigh (Wake) | CasNovo: Advanced Gene Editing Through Machine Learning | |
| Laszlo Gazzano-Stern | Asheville Catholic School – Asheville (Buncombe) | What Type Of Egg Or Egg Substitute Insulates The Ice Cream In A Baked Alaska Best? | |
| Lilian Redwine | Hanes Middle – Winston Salem (Forsyth) | Fantastic Plastic | |
| Sragvhi Bollam, Rachel Joseph | Mills Park Middle – Cary (Wake) | The Nitrate Gamble: A Plant Game | |
| Reva Khaire | Randolph Middle – Charlotte (Mecklenburg) | A Novel Machine Learning Approach to predict Post-Fire Tree Mortality Using Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) and Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) Integration | |
| Kyle Hanes | Hanes Middle – Winston Salem (Forsyth) | Fighting the Freeze | |
| Andrew Nguyen | Hanes Middle – Winston Salem (Forsyth) | Time Judged All | |
| garret chapman | Cullowhee Valley School – Cullowhee (Jackson) | Budgeting Energy: The Price and Performance Showdown | |
| Ram Kuchikulla | Greensboro Academy – Greensboro (Guilford) | Playing With Air | |
| Matthew Hagler | Phoenix Academy Inc – High Point (Guilford) | Shifty Shapes | |
| Yash Mehta | Durham Academy – Durham (Durham) | Using motors to simulate braille | |
| Diana Zavadskaia | Triangle Math and Science Academy – Cary (Wake) | Need a heart? Make one! | |
Senior Division
Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair
| Bianca Chan | NC School of Science and Mathematics – Morganton, | Identifying Inhibitors and Inducers of the Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres (ALT) Pathway through the Development of a High-Throughput Phenotypic Screen | |
| Davin Tipton | NC School of Science and Mathematics – Durham | Analyzing the Effects of General Relativity on Hypervelocity Star Ejection Velocities | |
| Sreeja Appala | South Iredell High – Statesville (Iredell) | Unraveling the Complex Interplay Between Immune Cells and Cancer Progression Utilizing a Novel Application of an Artificial Neural Network | |
| Isabel Garcia | Isaac Bear Early College HS – Wilmington (New Hanover) | Developing a Cost-Effective Alternative to Treating Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) | |
| Amy Okonkwo | NC School of Science and Mathematics – Durham | Genetically Modifying Wild Type K12 E. coli for the MtrC Gene for Production of Cytochrome C and Microbial Fuel Cell Application | |
| Maruthi Vemula | NC School of Science and Mathematics – Durham | Mitigating Information Asymmetry in Governmental Policies: An AI-Driven Approach | |
| Abhishek Shah | Green Level High School, Cary, (Wake) | AuralStudio: A multi-sensory development environment with a novel, bytecode-compiled programming language. | |
| Aadarsh Lakshmanan | Ardrey Kell High – Charlotte (Mecklenburg) | A Novel Machine Learning Approach for Assessing PFAS Pollution in North Carolina using Water Contamination Sources | |
| Abhinav Meduri | NC School of Science and Mathematics – Durham | Enhancing Lead Sequestration and Power Conversion Efficiency in Organic-Inorganic Lead Halide Perovskite Solar Cells via Alginate-L-Cysteine Biopolymer Encapsulation | |
| Siddharth Maruvada | NC School of Science and Mathematics – Durham | Design, Synthesis, and Testing of Novel Small Molecule Interleukin-6 Inhibitors for the Amelioration of Inflammatory Bowel Disease | |
| William Feng | Enloe High – Raleigh (Wake County) | A Novel Approach on Determining Aragonite Saturation State through Remote Sensing and Machine Learning Techniques | |
| Pratishrut Kamal, Venkata Vadlamudi | Enloe High – Raleigh (Wake County) | DynaGrad: A Novel Gradient Descent with Adaptive Dual Learning Rates and Momenta for Improved Optimization and Accelerated Convergence in Deep Neural Networks | |
Category Awards
Elementary Division
Exemplary Projects
| Amina Abdullaeva, Talia Sorenson | Endhaven Elementary – Charlotte | To read or to listen, that is the question. | |
| Sawyer Ceneskie | Page Street Elementary – Troy | Pond H20: Safe or No | |
| Eloise Jennings | Holly Ridge Elementary – Holly Springs (Wake) | Which Liquids Cleans Pennies the Best? | |
| Lilly Long | Speas Elementary – Winston Salem (Forsyth) | Yes, Chef: Investigating the Maillard Reaction | |
| Maya Narsale | The Academy at Lincoln – Greensboro (Guilford) | Perfecting The Meringue – What acid causes meringue to firm up the most? | |
| Boone Fassnacht | Pocosin Innovative Charter School | Household Fertilizer Testing Center | |
| Riley Horne | Topsail Elem – Hampstead (Pender) | Hey Plants …Think What You Drink! | |
| Gage Williams | Star Elementary – Star | Erosion In Motion | |
| Brayden Lambert | Stedman Elementary – Stedman | Stuck in the Muck | |
| Ronan McAlarney | Heyward C Bellamy El – Wilmington (New Hanover) | Choose the Right Bright Lights | |
| Aadhirai Niranjan Kumar | Alston Ridge Elementary – Cary (Wake) | Trustable Trusses | |
| Lyndon Williams | Aggie Academy – Greensboro (Guilford) | Fitness Tracker: Fact or Fiction | |
| Pressly Fisher | Combs Elementary – Raleigh (Wake) | Keeping It Cool | |
| Lina Kimes | North Duplin Elem – Mt. Olive | Oh Say! Can You See the Sound? | |
| Lauren Satterfield | Masonboro Elementary – Wilmington (New Hanover) | Non-Newtonian Noise | |
| Kinley Barnett | Lenoir | Which Sunscreen is Most Effective? | |
| Lincoln Chambers | Old Richmond Elementary – Tobaccoville | Tarantula Tunes | |
| Trinity Dalton | Stoneville Elementary – Stoneville | The Effects of Carpet Cleaners on Stain Removal | |
| Charlie Garland | Celeste Henkel Elementary – Statesville | Putting Out Fires | |
| Anika Prajapati | NCSEF Virtual Regional Fair | pH-ing (Acids and Bases Around Us) | |
| Beckett Willis | C B Eller Elementary (Elkin) | Will the Ice Stay Frozen? | |
| Sloka Gaddam | The Math and Science Academy of Apex | Helpful Hydrogels | |
| Victor Mehta, August Pfleger | Barton Pond Elementary | Earthquake in a Jar | |
| Henry Markwith | Hawks Nest STEAM Academy – Gastonia | Sticky Situations: Investigating the Strength of Glue Bonds | |
| Gunner Martin | Edwin M Holt Elementary – Burlington | How Strong is Your Roof? Testing the Pull-Through Strength of Asphalt Shingle Nail Lines | |
| Charlie Saunders | Uwharrie Charter Academy | Automatic Dog Feeder | |
| Aria Tsang | Hortons Creek Elementary – Cary (Wake ) | Is ChatGPT Fair? | |
| Sidra Baloch | Al-Iman School – Raleigh (Wake) | Memory Matches | |
| Aidan Driscoll | A.B. Combs Elementary | Laser Triggered Balloon Explosions | |
| Luke Johnson | Wrightsville Beach E – Wrightsville Beach | Environmental Spin | |
| Nehala Chandolu | Mills Park Middle – Cary (Wake) | Comparing Synthetic Hydrogels Versus Natural Fungal Methods for Effective Water Conservation to Enhance Plant Growth | |
Junior Division
Biological Science A
| 1st | Rutwa Patil | Metrolina Reg Scholars Academy – Charlotte (Mecklenbug) | Breaking Down Plastics Puzzle! | |
| 2nd | Bailey Heape | Table Rock Middle – Morganton (Burke) | Gelling Together: A Study of Hydrogels in Farming | |
| 3rd | Sameera Chalamalasetti | Mills Park Middle – Cary (Wake) | Do Biodegradable Bags Really Preserve Food? | |
| Honorable Mention | Nehala Chandolu | Comparing Synthetic Hydrogels Versus Natural Fungal Methods for Effective Water Conservation to Enhance Plant Growth | ||
Biological Science B
| 1st | Sanvi Asaigoli | Carnage Middle – Raleigh (Wake ) | CasNovo: Advanced Gene Editing Through Machine Learning | |
| 2nd | Saumya Wagh | Davis Drive Middle – Cary (Wake ) | Gripping New Opportunities – Harnessing Gecko Leg Biomimicry for Prosthetics | |
| 3rd | Aaron Lee | The Academy at Lincoln – Greensboro (Guildford) | Preventing diabetes by inhibiting invertase using foods | |
| Honorable Mention | Grace Edwards, Annalee Rogers, Brooklynn Rust | West Wilkes Middle -Wilkesboro, (Wilkes) | Drinkable Drops | |
Chemistry
| 1st | Laszlo Gazzano-Stern | Asheville Catholic School (Buncombe) | What Type Of Egg Or Egg Substitute Insulates The Ice Cream In A Baked Alaska Best? | |
| 2nd | Lilian Redwine | Hanes Middle – Winston Salem (Forsyth) | Fantastic Plastic | |
| 3rd | Hailey Silva | The Math and Science Academy of Apex, (Wake) | Rusting Out: How Acids Affect the Rate of Corrosion | |
| Honorable Mention Project | Caelen Hennessee, Chaeyoung Lim, Dev Patel | Liberty Middle – Morganton, (Burke) | Energy in drinks: A study of electrolytes | |
Earth and Environmental Science
| 1st | Rajorshi Roychoudhury, Nitya Yadlapalli | Community House Middle – Charlotte (Mecklenburg) | Solving world’s water shortage by Salt-water desalination | |
| 2nd | Reva Khaire | Randolph Middle – Charlotte (Mecklenburg) | A Novel Machine Learning Approach to predict Post-Fire Tree Mortality Using Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) and Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) Integration | |
| 3rd | Chase Tomala | Western Harnett Middle – Lillington (Harnett) | Biomass to Biogas | |
| Honorable Mention | Deborah Monahan | Blessed Sacrament School | The Effects of Iodine of Saliva in Waxworms for the Biodegradation of Plastics | |
Engineering
| 1st | Leyla Bozkurt | Al-Iman School – Raleigh (Wake) | Bionic Plants: Wireless Bioelectronic Connections with Plants | |
| 2nd | Kyle Hanes | Hanes Middle – Winston Salem (Forsyth) | Fighting the Freeze | |
| 3rd | Anvi Ediga | Mills Park Middle – Cary (Wake ) | “Easy Eyes – Screen Time Optimizations | |
| Honorable Mention | Flynn Kornegay | Charles Murray Middl – Wilmington (New Hanover) | Green Suncatcher Solar Hot Water Heater | |
Math/Data Science
| 1st | Andrew Nguyen | Hanes Middle – Winston Salem (Forsyth) | Time Judged All | |
| 2nd | garret chapman | Cullowhee Valley School – Cullowhee | Budgeting Energy: The Price and Performance Showdown | |
| 3rd | Julianna Hoffert | Asheville Catholic School – Asheville (Buncomb) | How Much Time Can Someone Save by Speeding on a Rural Interstate? | |
| Honorable Mention | Ishan Sundaram | Randolph Middle – Charlotte (Mecklenburg) | Do End-Users have access to the right Performance Metrics? Models to predict CPU and GPU Performance and Efficiency | |
Physics
| 1st | Matthew Hagler | Phoenix Academy Inc – High Point (Guilford) | Shifty Shapes | |
| 2nd | Ram Kuchikulla | Greensboro Academy – Greensboro (Guilford) | Playing With Air | |
| 3rd | Carter Hahn | Charlotte Preparatory School (Mecklenburg) | Can Tee Height Improve your Drives | |
| Honorable Mention | Mia Moolan | The Math and Science Academy of Apex (Wake) | How Does A DIY Eco-Friendly, Cost-Effective Parabolic Reflector Compare To A Professionally Made Signal Booster In Terms Of Signal Strength? | |
Technology
| 1st | Yash Mehta | Durham Academy – Durham (Durham) | Using motors to simulate braille | |
| 2nd | Diana Zavadskaia | Triangle Math and Science Academy – Cary (Wake) | Need a heart? Make one! | |
| 3rd | Lexie Spannhake | Harnett Central Middle – Angier (Harnett) | Let’s ChatGPT | |
| Honorable Mention | Kinley Robinson | C C Griffin Middle – Concord (Cabarrus) | Guitar pick width and it’s effect on sound | |
Senior Division
Biological Science A
| 1st | Amy Okonkwo | NC School of Science and Mathematics | Genetically Modifying Wild Type K12 E. coli for the MtrC Gene for Production of Cytochrome C and Microbial Fuel Cell Application | |
| 2nd | Isabel Garcia | Isaac Bear Early College HS – Wilmington (New Hanover) | Developing a Cost-Effective Alternative to Treating Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) | |
| 3rd | Linda Xue | NC School of Science and Mathematics | Social Isolation on Behavior and Physiology In the Model Gromphadorhina Portentosa | |
| Honorable Mention | Lane Tompkins | Isaac Bear Early College HS – Wilmington (New Hanover) | Exploring the Efficacy of Light Based Monotherapies for Targeting Escherichia Coli | |
Biological Science B
| 1st | Bianca Chan | NC School of Science and Mathematics | Identifying Inhibitors and Inducers of the Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres (ALT) Pathway through the Development of a High-Throughput Phenotypic Screen | |
| 2nd | Sreeja Appala | South Iredell High – Statesville (Rowan) | Unraveling the Complex Interplay Between Immune Cells and Cancer Progression Utilizing a Novel Application of an Artificial Neural Network | |
| 3rd | Viswajith Nambiar | NC School of Science and Mathematics | Examining the Effect of Cucurbita Oil on the Drosophila Model of Alzheimer’s Disease | |
| Honorable Mention | Smruti Patil | Enloe High – Raleigh (Wake County) | Design and Synthesis of ATPase Inhibitors To Target the Activity of Rix7 in the Ribosome Assembly Pathway | |
Chemistry
| 1st | Siddharth Maruvada | NC School of Science and Mathematics | Design, Synthesis, and Testing of Novel Small Molecule Interleukin-6 Inhibitors for the Amelioration of Inflammatory Bowel Disease | |
| 2nd | Abhinav Meduri | NC School of Science and Mathematics | Enhancing Lead Sequestration and Power Conversion Efficiency in Organic-Inorganic Lead Halide Perovskite Solar Cells via Alginate-L-Cysteine Biopolymer Encapsulation | |
| 3rd | Rachit Chandrakul | Atkins Academic & Technology High School – Winston-Salem | “Carbon Quantum Dots: Green nanotechnology for water pollution detection and treatment” | |
| Honorable Mention | Aryaman Shukla | NCSEF Virtual Regional Fair | EProACH: A Novel ML Eutrophication Prognosticator for an Efficient Prediction of Complex HAB Patterns | |
Earth and Environmental Science
| 1st | William Feng | Enloe High – Raleigh (Wake County) | A Novel Approach on Determining Aragonite Saturation State through Remote Sensing and Machine Learning Techniques | |
| 2nd | Aadarsh Lakshmanan | Ardrey Kell High – Charlotte | A Novel Machine Learning Approach for Assessing PFAS Pollution in North Carolina using Water Contamination Sources | |
| 3rd | Logan Tamadon | Isaac Bear Early College HS – Wilmington | Mighty Mycelium | |
| Honorable Mention | Aryaman Shukla | NCSEF Virtual Regional Fair | EProACH: A Novel ML Eutrophication Prognosticator for an Efficient Prediction of Complex HAB Patterns | |
Engineering
| 2nd | Rafael Kohn | Charles D Owen High School | Redesigning a CNC Router for Small-Scale Manufacturing | |
| 3rd | Luca Cyrus, Indu Gadiraju, Carolina Jones | Region 1 Science Fair | Developing a Low-Cost and Modular Lagrangian Drifter for Automated Rip Current Detection | |
| Honorable Mention | Arkapravo Sen | Weddington High – Matthews | JIZO | |
Math/Data Science
| 1st | Pratishrut Kamal, Venkata Vadlamudi | NCSEF Virtual Regional Fair | DynaGrad: A Novel Gradient Descent with Adaptive Dual Learning Rates and Momenta for Improved Optimization and Accelerated Convergence in Deep Neural Networks | |
| 2nd | Kenna Zhang | Cary Academy – Cary (Wake County) | Promoting Equity: Assessing Algorithmic Fairness in Machine Learning Approaches for Predicting Alzheimer’s Disease | |
| 3rd | Alice Cheng | NC School of Science and Mathematics | Automatic Arrhythmia Detection Using Continuous Wavelet Transform and 2D Convolutional Neural Networks | |
| Honorable Mention | Zaynah Khan | Marvin Ridge High – Waxhaw | A PINN (Physics Informed Neural Network) Approach to Optimizing the Forward Model in Diffuse Optical Tomography | |
Physics
| 1st | Davin Tipton | NC School of Science and Mathematics | Analyzing the Effects of General Relativity on Hypervelocity Star Ejection Velocities | |
| 2nd | Nachammai Annamalai | South Iredell High – Statesville | Unveiling Acoustic Mechanisms Shaping Speech Intelligibility in Enclosed Environments with Innovative Boundary Materials | |
| 3rd | Sutharsika Kumar | NC School of Science and Mathematics | Band Structure Modeling of Perovskite Materials with Quantum ESPRESSO for Multijunction Photovoltaic Cell Optimization | |
| Honorable Mention | Ankit Biswas | Providence High – Charlotte | Discovery of the 5 oldest Population III LB-galaxy candidates using a novel population-synthesis-based broadband approach | |
Technology
| 1st | Abhishek Shah | NCSEF Virtual Regional Fair | AuralStudio: A multi-sensory development environment with a novel, bytecode-compiled programming language. | |
| 2nd | Maruthi Vemula | NC School of Science and Mathematics | Mitigating Information Asymmetry in Governmental Policies: An AI-Driven Approach | |
| 3rd | Maxwell Stalsitz | Isaac Bear Early College HS – Wilmington | Enhancing Satellite Ground Station Efficacy: Investigating L-Band Feed Horn Designs in Creating a Multimodal Atmosphere and Satellite Monitoring Application | |
| Honorable Mention | Adam Stone | Charlotte Latin School | Utilizing AI Enabled Network Analysis to Optimize Efficient Access to Quality Content on Social Learning Platforms | |
