News India Times

www.newsindiatimes.com – that’s all you need to know 81 Exceptional Teen Scientists Of Indian-Origin Among 300 Finalists Of Prestigious National Competition T he Society for Science (the Society) announced January 7, 2026, the top 300 scholars in the Re- generon Science Talent Search 2026, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors. Eighty one out of the 300 are of Indian origin, a pro- portion way higher than the population of Indians in the US. Each of the scholars will be awarded $2,000, and their schools will be awarded $2,000 for each enrolled scholar. This is the 85th anniversary of this competition. More than 2,600 students applied this year from 826 high schools across 46 states, Washington, D.C., Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and 16 countries. The 300 scholars are from 203 American and inter- national high schools in 34 states, Washington, D.C. and China. President and CEO, Society for Science and Publisher, Science News Maya Ajmera congratulated the 300 final- ists, adding, “Their research highlights the creativity, rigor and determination that’s pushing forward the future of scientific discovery. We are honored to recognize their achievements and support their continued pursuit of STEM excellence.” Scholars were chosen based on their outstanding research, leadership skills, community involvement, commitment to academics, creativity in asking scientific questions and exceptional promise as STEM leaders demonstrated through the submission of their original, independent research projects, essays and recommenda- tions. The 300 winners announced on January 7, will be whittled down to around 40 of the top finalists on January 21, 2026, and the Awards Ceremony will be held inWash- ington, D.C. on March 10, 2026. IMPORTANT DATES FOR 2026 • Top 40 Finalists Announced: January 21, 2026 • REGENERON STS FINALS WEEK: March 5-11, 2026 • Public Exhibition of Projects: March 8, 2026 • Winners Announced at Awards Ceremony: March 10, 2026 Below is the list of students of Indian origin among the 300 finalists. 15 students Meghana Addanki, Age: 17 McNair Academic High School, New Jersey Project Title: Efficient Energy Harvesting Using Biomate- rials: Fabrication of a ZnO-Modified Eggshell Membrane and Cotton Fabric-Based Piezo-Tribo Hybrid Generator Aryana Adur, Age: 17 Jericho Senior High School, NewYork Project Title: Therapeutic Modulation of a Novel Neuro- epithelial Circuit by Larazotide Acetate and Neuregulin-1 Restores Epithelial Barrier Integrity in Food Allergy Anusha Agarwal, Age: 17 Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technol- ogy, Virginia Project Title: Multigrid-Inspired Neural Operators for Real-Time Brain Biomechanics PredictionWith Spectral- ly-Aware Learning Arjun Agarwal, Age: 18 Jesuit High School, Oregon Project Title: Semisimplifications of p-Equivariant GLn- Modules Anchita Agrawal, Age: 17 Jericho Senior High School, NewYork Project Title: Characterizing Convergent Transcriptomic Impacts of Norepinephrine Across Breast Cancer Grades via “Element AVITI-24” Avyakt Agrawal, Age: 17 Woodward Academy College, Georgia Project Title: A Novel Adaptive Learning Framework Integrating Item Response Theory, Bayesian Knowledge Tracing and Deep LearningWith Confidence-Calibrated Feedback Lakshmi Agrawal, Age: 18 Stanford University Online High School, California Project Title: Stormwater Remediation of 6PPD and 6PPD-Quinone Using Citric Acid and Aluminum-Cross- linked Nanocellulose Hydrosponges Amogh Akella, Age: 17 Westwood High School, Texas Project Title: Diameter Bounds for Friends-and-Strangers Graphs Anish Anand, Age: 18 Palos Verdes Peninsula High School, California Project Title: A Novel Wireless Charging System for Pace- makers Using 2.4 GHz EMWaves Aniruth Ananthanarayanan, Age: 18 Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, Texas Project Title: Cutting Too Deep: Tracking a Decade of Benign Lung Resections After the Rise of LDCT Cancer Screening Rohan Arni, Age: 17 High Technology High School, New Jersey Project Title: Using Deep Learning for Robust Classifica- tion of Fast Radio Bursts Adhithi Arun, Age: 18 Livingston High School, New Jersey Project Title: Platelets Promote Multiple Myeloma Cell Survival and Immune Evasion Through Soluble Factors and NK Cell Modulation Shruti Arun, Age: 18 Cherry Creek High School, Colorado Project Title: On the Double of an Endymion Algebra in Characteristic 2 Vedant Balani, Age: 17 Jericho Senior High School, NewYork Project Title: Hurricane Forecasting Using Comprehen- sive Multivariable Machine Learning ModelingWith Atmospheric Temperatures, Polar Motion and Sunspot Numbers Pravin Balasingam, Age: 17 Los Gatos High School, California Project Title: Novel Machine Learning Approach To Iden- tify Brain-Behavior Relationships for Core Autistic Traits Abhigya Bandugula, Age: 18 Lynbrook High School, California Project Title: Comparison of RNA-Seq Data From Primary and Recurrent Acute Myeloid Leukemia Patients Avani Tara Bansal, Age: 18 The Potomac School, Virginia Project Title: A Novel Pneumatic Silicone Sleeve for Trans- humeral Prostheses That Autonomously Regulates and Adjusts to Socket–Limb Pressure To Improve Amputee Comfort Dhroov Bharatia, Age: 17 Plano Senior High School, Texas Project Title: AutoMates: AutomatingWith Self-Learning Intelligent Agents Mishika Bhatia, Age: 17 Rock Canyon High School, Colorado Project Title: Saw Palmetto-Induced Inhibition of the 5-Reductase Pathway as a Clinical Treatment for PCOS Symptoms Srishti Boral, Age: 17 Eastlake High School, Washington Project Title: Computational Design of Small-Molecule Activators of the AtlA Autolysin To Induce Internal Cell Death in Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Abhiram Chalamalasetty, Age: 17 Canyon Crest Academy, California Project Title: TubercuProbe: A Cross-Attention Graph- Sequence Model for Prioritizing Compound Probes in Mycobacterium tuberculosis Soumik Chemudupati, Age: 17 Liberal Arts and Science Academy, Texas Project Title: Effectiveness of Amygdala Hijack Threat Cues for Interpretable Phishing Email Detection: A Com- parison of Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Large Language Models Ryka Chopra, Age: 17 Mission San Jose High School, California Project Title: Designing Incentive-Compatible Coopera- tion for the Global Commons: A Reinforcement Learning- Integrated Mechanism Design Framework for Arctic Conservation Arnav Dagar, Age: 17 Canyon Crest Academy, California Project Title: ARFSNet–Deep Learning for Amblyopia Risk Factor Screening Shaunak Dalal, Age: 17 Hershey High School, Pennsylvania Project Title: Time-Series Deep Learning and Conformal Prediction for Improved Sepsis Diagnosis in Primarily Non-ICU Hospitalized Patients Rohan Dash, Age: 17 Pine View School, Florida Project Title: Controllable Multi-Objective Neural Archi- tecture Search via Decision Transformers Shaumprovo Debnath, Age: 18 Keystone School, Texas Project Title: FromThought to Speech: Integrating Low Cost EEGsWith AI To Decode Neural Language Signals in Neurologically Intact Non-Verbal Neuromuscular Patients Jashvi Desai, Age: 18 Yorktown High School, NewYork Project Title: Neuroinflammatory Signatures and Com- pensatory Prefrontal Mechanisms in Long COVID-19: Insights From 7T MRI and Cognitive Modeling Mythreya Dharani, Age: 18 Bergen County Academies, New Jersey Project Title: I2-CISSP: An Interpretable Machine Learn- ing Framework for Robust and Practical Prediction of Cisplatin Response in Human Tumors Samanyu Krishna Ganesh, Age: 18 TheWestminster Schools, Georgia Project Title: Characterizing Variations in the Ruelle Zeta Function Under Conformal Perturbations to the Metrics of Negatively Curved Riemannian 2-Manifolds Anand Sebastian George, Age: 17 University School of Milwaukee, Wisconsin Project Title: Prediction of Infection Risk in Multiple My- eloma Patients TreatedWith Bispecific Antibodies: Neural Network and Ensemble Approaches Danika Gupta, Age: 17 The Harker School, California Project Title: Using AI To CleanWater: Leveraging Large By a StaffWriter PHOTO:SOCIETYFORSCIENCE.ORG Announcement about the Regeneron Science Talent competition for 2026. Special Report News India Times (January 10, 2025 - January 16, 2025) January 16, 2025 5 - Continued On Page 6