The 77th annual Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science regional competition was held at Cecelia Snyder Middle School in Bensalem on Saturday, Feb. 22.
Over 400 students from Philadelphia and Bucks County presented their independent scientific research to professional scientists and educators in this regional fair. Students had their choice of creating a purposeful science experiment, exploring a mathematics topic above their current range of study, or exploring technology with a computer science or engineering project.
Forty-five Bensalem High School students participated, with 39 students earning first place awards. They are eligible to attend the state competition to present their experiments. The students are: Ali Ahmad, Danielle Armstrong, Eddie Barber, Stacy Bediako, Anthony Bibeck, Treesha Brahmbhatt, Sumaiya Difaa, Emmanuel Dolder, Sofia Ferrandez, Krishiv Gandhi, Tiffany Gao, Rowan Halawani, Jeffrey Ho, Katie Ho, Taylor Hood, Jon Larbi, Patrick Le, Jane Leible, Kaitlyn MacMillan, Ahmad Mahmood, Josh Mathew, Brian Olsen, Max Palamarchuk, Mokak Parmar, Ayush Patel, Deesha Patel, Jia Patel, Mahi Patel, Rohan Patel, Shivam Patel, Vinay Patel, Yogesh Patel, Tanvi Patnaik, Sami Rana, Alley Rossi, Gideon Tan, Tori Tavernier, Madison Thai and Julia Ting.
The high school students’ projects were sponsored by Lisa Tokmaijan.
In the middle school division, 17 Robert K. Shafer students participated. Twelve students placed first and are eligible to attend Penn State to present their experiments at the state level competition. They are: William (Billy) Bibeck, Robert (Rocky) Bibeck, Zachary (Zach) Brunell, Victoria Mocarski, Ashley Murillo, Michael Rago, Janki Rao, Andrew Reznitchenko, Kevin Schmidt, Keira Seidman, Youssef Traboulsy and Abbigail Turco.
The Shafer students were sponsored by Shafer teachers Diana Kelly and Jason Cohen.
Fifteen Cecelia Snyder Middle School students participated, with 13 earning first place awards. They are: Candice Chen, Astha Patel, Colin Maloney, Aayushi Patel, Alex Hood, Connor Hinshaw, Aastha Patel, Jiya Patel, Vedika Sharma, Shane Sullivan, Marigrace Doherty, Julie Mathews and Gunjan Patel.
The Snyder students were sponsored by Kate Liese and Tom Hoffman.
All first place winners have qualified to present at the 85th annual PJAS State Competition on May 17, 18 and 19, at Penn State University in University Park. The students who placed second are eligible to attend and participate as a technician.
