This year the annual IJAS State Expo was held on May 4, 2024, at Millikin University in Decatur. IMSA had numerous SIR students qualify. Entries included several papers and poster projects. The following students were recognized for their outstanding research investigations.
Vignesh Tiruvannamalai ’24 and Josephine Kim ’25 won the following awards for their project, DDX18 Plays a Functional Role in the Association of Centromeres and Heterochromatin to the Nucleolus. Vignesh Tiruvannamalai also won the Ethel M. and Lyell J. Thomas Scholarship, valued at $1000.
- First Place, Illinois State Academy of Science Competition
- First Place, Cellular and Molecular Biology (Illinois Soybean Growers)
- Best in Paper Session (Senior Division)
- Jay and Jeremy Hoffmann Memorial Award (exceptional project to advance the human condition)
- Exceptional Project Award (Field Museum)
- Gold Rating Overall
Samantha Narchetty ’26 won a Gold Award for her engineering paper and poster project, An Analysis of Swann Robotics Algorithm Performance in the Application of Search and Rescue. Samantha was also awarded an Exceptional Project in Engineering by Hanson Professional Services Inc.
Aditya Prasanth ’24 was awarded the prestigious Schroeder Wetzel Scholarship at IJAS. Aditya also completed his fifth year serving on the Board for IJAS, where he acted as president, helping lead, organize, and run the IJAS science fairs located around the State of Illinois.
Michael Granger ’25 received a Gold Award for a computer science paper, Media Influence and Public Opinion in the 2023 Israel-Hamas Conflict and a Silver Award for the poster entry.
Jayram Palamadai ’24 and William Yu ’25 received a Gold Award for their computer science project, Vista Flow: Photorealistic Volumetric Reconstruction with Dynamic Resolution Management via Q-Learning.
Ryan Cho ’25 received a Silver Award for a behavioral science project, Optimizing Memory via Real-Time Monitoring of Neural Data with Adaptive Brain Stimulation Machine Learning Algorithms.
Aadi Mehta ’26 received a Silver Award for an aerospace paper, Airfoil Design Optimization for Aeronautical Efficiency.
