April 10, 2021

The 38th Annual Northwest Science Expo, held Friday, April 9, 2021 as an online event, announces top winners in Oregon’s state-level high school science research competition affiliated with the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair. This fair was made possible with Gold Sponsor support from Genentech, Broadcom Foundation and Society for Science along with supporters at many levels.

Two best of fair winners were chosen from 156 projects representing 15 science and engineering categories. They are:

• Ronald Lin, 15, in grade 10 from International School of Beaverton won Best of Fair-Life Science with a project titled, “Detecting Arrhythmia using peak detection and convolutional neural networks to deploy into wearable tech”. He was also honored with the  Regeneron Biomedical Science Award, this $500 prize is awarded to students who show exemplary fortitude and exhibited alignment to the five principles of The Regeneron Way. 
• Ishan Ahluwalia, 14, in grade 9 from Jesuit High School won Best of Fair-Physical Science with a project titled, “A Predictive Model for Prevention of Hydroplaning Related Car Crashes using Piezoelectric Sensors and Autoencoder Neural Networks”.

In addition to a $500 award and trophy both qualified to compete at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair in May. The following students were also chosen to compete at Regeneron ISEF:

• Madison Carson, 16, in grade 11 from Oregon Episcopal School was selected with a project titled, “Predicting Knee Luxation Force for Various Gallinaceous Bird Species Using Musculoskeletal Measurements of the Leg”.
• Vladimir Mamchik, 15, in grade 10 from Jesuit High School was selected with a project titled, “An Innovative Microcontroller-Driven Illumination System to Correct Moderate to Severe Color Vision Deficiency”.
• Peter Ye, 17, in grade 11 from Catlin Gabel School was selected with a project titled, “Generalizing Kirchhoff laws for Signed Graphs”.
• Anna Nielsen, 17,l and Sophia Nielsen, 17, in grade 12 from West Linn High School were selected with a project titled, “Progression of Sea Star Wasting Syndrome on the Oregon Coast”.

Joining the finalists from NWSE will be the best projects from each of the six regional fairs in the Northwest Science Expo System. The group of 30 students, collectively referred to as Team OR, will represent the entire state at Regeneron ISEF against international competition in science, engineering and mathematics.

• Nathan Muszynski, 17, in grade 12 from Liberty High School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at Beaverton-Hillsboro Science Expo with a project titled, “Recycling Household Plastic Waste for Use in 3D Printing Applications”.
• Lane Braun, 18, in grade 12 from Beaverton Academy of Science and Engineering qualified for Regeneron ISEF at Beaverton-Hillsboro Science Expo with a project titled, “Quantum Machine Learning Simulation of Higgs Boson Charge Parity Symmetry Violation”.
• Rishab Jain, 16, in grade 10 from Westview High School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at Beaverton-Hillsboro Science Expo with a project titled, “Codonify: A Recurrent-Neural-Network-based Codon Optimization Tool to Improve Protein Expression Towards Efficient Vaccine Manufacturing”.
• Pranav Sehgal, 16, and Tim Solberg, 16, in grade 11 from Beaverton Academy of Science and Engineering qualified for Regeneron ISEF at Beaverton-Hillsboro Science Expo with a project titled, “Project Mashiro: Synthetic aperture radar imaging using inertial sensor fusion and computational DSP”.
• Vedanth Iyer, 17, in grade 12 from Sunset High School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at Beaverton-Hillsboro Science Expo with a project titled, “First-Principles Characterization of a Novel Chromium Doped Vanadyl-Oxide Based Cathode for Higher Energy and Efficiency Lithium-Ion Batteries”.
• Alan Ma, 16, in grade 10 from Jesuit High School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at Gresham-Barlow Science Expo with a project titled, “A Novel Machine Learning Based Identification Tool (ELECT) for Early Colorectal Cancer Detection through Advanced Microbiome Composition Analysis”.
• Dev-Rishi Udata, 17, in grade 11 from Jesuit High School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at Gresham-Barlow Science Expo with a project titled, “A novel approach for nuclear waste curation”.
• Jordynn Michael, 18, in grade 12 from Gresham High School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at Gresham-Barlow Science Expo with a project titled, “The effect of the concentration of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis on plant growth in Phaseolus vulgaris.””.
• Jacob Zhao, 17, in grade 12 from Bend Science Station qualified for Regeneron ISEF at COCC Regional Science Expo with a project titled, “Mean Green Recycling Machine: Robotic-Assisted Recycling Using Neural Networks”.
• Teaghan Knox, 16, in grade 11 from Bend Science Station qualified for Regeneron ISEF at COCC Regional Science Expo with a project titled, “Removing Carbon Dioxide from Coal Exhaust via an Olivine and Sodium Hydroxide Filter”.
• Leon Garcia, 16, in grade 10 from Corvallis High School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at Central Western Oregon Science Expo with a project titled, “Radio Emissions of Anomalous X-Ray Pulsars”.
• John Madland, 16, in grade 10 from South Salem High School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at Central Western Oregon Science Expo with a project titled, “Hot Car Death Prevention System”.
• Kara Gaiser, 16, in grade 11 from Oregon Episcopal School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at Aardvark Science Exposition with a project titled, “Development of Optimum Design Parameters for an Algae Based Martian Oxygen Production System”.
• Pun Siripun, 15, in grade 10 from Oregon Episcopal School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at Aardvark Science Exposition with a project titled, “Polaris – A Radiation Source Location Visualization System using Gamma-Geometry Calculation”.
• Maxwell Tsai, 15, in grade 10 from Oregon Episcopal School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at Aardvark Science Exposition with a project titled, “Musical Harmony and Dissonance: The Mathematical Quantification and Analysis of Two-Note Intervals on the Piano”.
• Lila Schweinfurth, 18, in grade 12 from Oregon Episcopal School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at Aardvark Science Exposition with a project titled, “Developing a User-Friendly System for Predicting Harmful Levels of Marine Biotoxins”.
• Frances McConnell, 16, in grade 11 from Oregon Episcopal School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at Aardvark Science Exposition with a project titled, “The Role of Income in Hospital Pricing”.
• Linnea Collett, 18, and Jadyn Sherry, 18, in grade 12 from Wilsonville High School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at CREST-Jane Goodall Science Symposium with a project titled, “Testing Tensile Strength of Student Engineered Starch-Based Bioplastic”.
• Anish Goswami, 16, in grade 10 from West Linn High School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at CREST-Jane Goodall Science Symposium with a project titled, “Novel Evolutionary Artificial Intelligence methods for de novo drug design”.
• Madeline Santoso, 14, in grade 9 from West Linn High School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at CREST-Jane Goodall Science Symposium with a project titled, “Video Game Reward Systems and Their Impact on Players’ Behavior in the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma”.
• Aditi Bhaskar, 16, in grade 10 from Wilsonville High School qualified for Regeneron ISEF at CREST-Jane Goodall Science Symposium with a project titled, “Detection of Nitrogen Levels in Sample Using Novel Method”.

For this virtual science fair, 97 judges spent a week scoring entries then interviewed the top projects in each category on April 9th. The middle school competition starts April 15th and is still seeking judges. Please contact Stephanie Jones at nwse@pdx.edu for more information on volunteering or sponsorship opportunities.