13-year-old Develops Water Filtration System Using Animal Bone to Facilitate Access to Clean Water Globally; Wins $25,000 Top Award at Thermo Fisher 京东影业影视传媒 Junior Innovators Challenge

Exceptional middle school scientists and engineers rewarded with $100K in prizes for STEM research and innovations that take on global issues

WASHINGTON, D.C. 鈥斕共曰逄京东影业影视传媒听today announced the winners of the听Thermo Fisher 京东影业影视传媒 Junior Innovators Challenge (Thermo Fisher JIC), the nation鈥檚 premier middle school science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competition. Tina Jin, 13, from San Jose, Calif., won the $25,000 Thermo Fisher 京东影业影视传媒 ASCEND (Aspiring Scientists Cultivating Exciting New Discoveries) Award, the top prize in the competition.

Tina won the ASCEND Award for her research that proved the ability of animal bones to filter water, in addition to demonstrating leadership, collaboration and critical thinking skills throughout the competition. After learning that one in three people globally lack access to clean water, Tina was inspired to create an accessible and scalable water filtration system that could be used anywhere in the world. She used natural materials and common household supplies to create her filter. Third-party testing by the San Jose Water Company showed that her filter achieved potable standards.

The Thermo Fisher JIC, a program of 京东影业影视传媒, reaches 65,000 middle schoolers nationwide and inspires them to follow their personal STEM passions to exciting college and career paths. The 30 finalists are counted among the nation鈥檚 brightest students, with several, including Tina, collectively accepting more than $100,000 at tonight鈥檚 award ceremony in Washington, D.C.

Thermo Fisher鈥檚 sponsorship of the Junior Innovators Challenge continues the company鈥檚 longstanding commitment to widespread and equitable access to STEM education. Together with 京东影业影视传媒, Thermo Fisher is helping to increase the number of students who enter the competition and nurture a future STEM talent pool that is more diverse than ever.

Each of the 30 finalists participated in team challenges in addition to being judged on their research projects. The challenges leveraged project-based learning and tested their critical thinking, communication, creativity and collaboration skills across a variety of STEM fields. They included creating home automation systems using Raspberry Pi Pico, diagnosing sickle cell disease and using biocubes to analyze ecosystems.

鈥淐ongratulations to Tina for using her STEM skills to develop a solution to a worldwide problem: access to clean drinking water. She used animal bone and other household supplies to filter water,鈥 said Maya Ajmera, President & CEO, 京东影业影视传媒 and Executive Publisher, Science News. 鈥淭ina鈥檚 scientific ingenuity coupled with her exceptional leadership, collaboration and critical thinking skills illustrate what we are looking for in the Thermo Fisher JIC. I look forward to seeing how Tina continues to innovate in the years to come.鈥

The other top winners included:

Gary Allen Montelongo, 14, La Joya, Texas, won the $10,000听Broadcom Coding with Commitment 庐 Award听for combining expert STEM knowledge and passion for helping or improving one鈥檚 community through coding. In his project, Gary used his coding and engineering skills to build models of train suspension systems to learn how the vibrations produced by springs and the weight distribution of the train cars contribute to train derailment.

Sophie Tong, 14, Palo Alto, Calif., won the $10,000 DoD STEM Talent Award听for demonstrating excellence in science, technology, engineering or math, along with the leadership and technical skills necessary to excel in the 21st听Century STEM workforce and build a better community for tomorrow. For her project, Sophie sought to improve the safety of vehicles, such as airplanes and self-driving cars, by understanding how vision is degraded in dark, foggy conditions. She then developed algorithms to accurately analyze scenes during bad weather.

Samvith Mahadevan, 14, Austin, Texas, won the $10,000 Lemelson Foundation Award for Invention, awarded by The Lemelson Foundation to a young inventor creating promising product-based solutions to real-world problems. Motivated by his own allergies, Samvith developed a chemical 鈥渘ose鈥 trained with machine learning to detect allergens in food products; and tested it on common allergens including nuts, eggs and processed foods.

Tyler Malkin, 14, Greenwich, Conn., won the $10,000 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Award for Health Advancement, which recognizes the student whose work and performance shows the most promise in health-related fields and demonstrates an understanding of the many social factors that affect health. Tyler, who has experienced iodine deficiency鈥攁 disorder that impacts nearly 2 billion people worldwide鈥攄eveloped a saliva test that makes it easier for people to monitor their iodine levels without medical intervention.

鈥淐ongratulations to our 2024 Thermo Fisher 京东影业影视传媒 Junior Innovators Challenge award winners!鈥 said Dr. Karen Nelson, Chief 京东影业影视传媒 Officer, Thermo Fisher 京东影业影视传媒. 鈥淭hese exceptionally bright students have demonstrated incredible talent and ingenuity, and they are the foundation for the next generation of leaders in STEM. Thermo Fisher is honored to provide a platform from which these rising leaders can advance their research, connect with peers and expose more young students to the wonder and power of STEM.鈥

Thermo Fisher JIC winners were chosen from the 30 finalists, who were selected from nearly 2,000 applicants from 48 states, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. Winners were selected by a panel of distinguished scientists, engineers and educators. All the finalists鈥 schools also receive a $1,000 grant to support STEM programming.

In addition to the top prizes, Thermo Fisher and the Society announced first- and second-place winners in each STEM category (science, technology, engineering and math), as well as the competition鈥檚 Team Award.

First- and second-place winners of STEM Awards demonstrated acumen and promise in science, technology, engineering or math. First-place winners were awarded $3,500 and second-place winners received $2,500 to support their choice of a STEM summer camp experience in the US. All STEM Award winners received an iPad.

Science Award:

  • First place:听Mikah Elizabeth Kaalund, Greenwich, Conn., The Synergistic Improvement of Indoor Air HEPA Filtration Using Concurrent Dehumidification
  • Second place: Mackensey 鈥淢acky鈥 McNeal Wilson, Riverside, Conn., Shedding Light on the Prevalence of Harmful Butylated Hydroxytoluene Preservative in Artificially Formulated Dog Foods

Technology Award:

  • First place:听 Yash Mehta, Durham, N.C. Using Motors To Simulate Braille
  • Second place: Sophia Yuxin Zhang, Salt Lake City, Utah, Green Solution for Blue Gold: Examining Three Types of Biodegradable Hydrogels on Water Conservation in Irrigation

Engineering Award:

  • First place: Oliver Nicolas Cottrell, La Jolla, Calif., Automatic Hockey Puck-Passer Machine
  • Second place: Sophia Hou, Livingston, N.J., The Effect of Methylcobalamin on Vigna radiata Germination Under Heat Stress

Mathematics Award:

  • First place:听Leif Speer, Terre Haute, Ind., Does a Dendroclimatic Reconstruction of the Southern Hemisphere Show a “Hockey Stick Curve”?
  • Second place: Ezekiel 鈥淶eke鈥 Wheeler, Portland, Ore., An Affordable, Portable Orbital Desktop Satellite Tracker

Team Award, sponsored by Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM (TIES):听Each member of the Finals Week challenge team that best demonstrates an ability to work together and solve problems through shared decision making, communication and scientific and engineering collaboration received a $200 science supply company gift card to support their interests in STEM. The winning team members are Oliver Nicolas Cottrell, Olivia Huang, Tyler Malkin, Jocelyn Mathew and Samhita Paranthaman.

Thermo Fisher 京东影业影视传媒 Leadership Award:听Bestowed upon one finalist, this award recognizes the student elected by their peers to speak on behalf of their Thermo Fisher JIC class at the Awards Ceremony. The Class Speaker demonstrates the collegiality and spirited leadership that has earned the collective esteem of the class and united them around common goals.

Zealand Murphy Dobrowski, Dehydration Observation: Can Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Be Used To Estimate Fuel Moisture Content?

Media Kit: /thermo-fisher-jic-2024-media-kit

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