About three top projects were recognized in each of Jefferson’s science fair categories, as well as honorable mentions. On Feb. 9th, the results of Jefferson’s annual science fair were announced to participants, who gathered in the Da Vinci Commons during Jefferson Learning Community (JLC).

“My experiment was about the effect light dark locomotion of Limulus polyphemus, otherwise known as the Atlantic Horseshoe crab”, senior Virginia Pan said. “Basically, I knew I wanted to work with Horseshoe crabs because they’re really cool organisms.”

The fair was a voluntary activity for some, and mandatory for many senior research labs.

“Everyone in the Oceanography Tech Lab had to do [the science fair],” Pan said.

Some students have participated in the fair for many years, while for others it was a first. Participants whose projects qualified to progress to the regional stage of the competition were notified.

“This is my first time in the science fair. I got third place in the science fair, which I was pretty pleasantly surprised by. I don’t think I’ll move on to regionals, but I just hope for this project to finish up collecting my data and analyzing it,” Pan said. “[Horseshoe crabs are] just really fascinating organisms, so we’ll see what happens. I’d work with these organisms again.”

Research projects were judged during the science fair, which took place on Feb. 4th in the cafeteria during eighth period. There were seventeen different categories, and each category was evaluated separately by judges.

Winners include:

First Place: Sanjana Challa and Nikarika Vattikonda in Animal Sciences

Second Place: Saaketh Anjutgi and Akash Raju in Animal Sciences

Third Place: Virginia Pan in Animal Sciences

First Place: Julian Vallyeason in Behavioral and Social Sciences

Second Place: Kareem Mohiyuddin and Kaushik Venkatesh in Behavioral and Social Sciences

Third Place: Shirali Nigam and Tarun Vippa in Behavioral and Social Sciences

First Place: Christina Oh in Biochemistry

Second Place: Shruti Anant and Soo Min Bae in Biochemistry

Third Place: Rachel Vasta in Biochemistry

First Place: Abhishek Bhargava in Biomedical and Health Sciences

Second Place: Hongyi Guan in Biomedical and Health Sciences

Third Place: Mihir Patel, Ethan Wu, and Adam Yee in Biomedical and Health Sciences

First Place: Raghav Ramraj in Biomedical Engineering

Second Place: Amritha Justin in Biomedical Engineering

Third Place: Seung Ha Lee and Haran Chithranjan in Biomedical Engineering

First Place: Jay Gupta in Cellular and Molecular Biology

Second Place: Asha Krishnakumar in Cellular and Molecular Biology

Third Place: Neeraj Prasad in Cellular and Molecular Biology

First Place: Kevin Lin, Victoria Yang, and Tiger Zhang in Chemistry

Second Place: Han Gu, Rebecca Linick, and Jared Nirenberg in Chemistry

Third Place: Andrew Howard and Gabriel Margolis in Chemistry

First Place: Jake Cui in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics

Second Place: Kevin Geng, Aadith Vittala, and Lawrence Wang in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics

Third Place: Thuy Vi Nguyen in Computation Biology and Bioinformatics

First Place: Siona Prasad in Earth and Environmental Sciences

Second Place: Mollie Passacantando and Ian Tucker in Earth and Environmental Sciences

Third Place: Neha Bhargava and Alison Luckett in Earth and Environmental Sciences

First Place: Jonah Casebeer in Embedded Systems

Second Place: Ray Liu in Embedded Systems

Third Place: Nithin Dass and Srinidhi Krishnamurthy in Embedded Systems

First Place: Katherine Barbano and Eugene Jeong in Energy: Chemistry

Second Place: Aaron Gu, Akhil Madhugiri, and Varun Iyengar in Energy: Chemistry