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www.desitalk.com – that’s all you need to know 10 SPECIAL REPORT January 16, 2026 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 Regeneron Science Talent Search 2026, the na- tion’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors. Eighty one out of the 300 are of Indian origin, a proportion 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 an- niversary of this competition. More than 2,600 students applied this year from 826 high schools across 46 states, Washington, D.C., Northern Mari- ana Islands, Puerto Rico, and 16 countries. The 300 scholars are from 203 Ameri- can and international 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 finalists, adding, “Their research highlights the creativity, rigor and determination that’s pushing forward the future of scientific discov- ery. We are honored to recognize their achievements and support their contin- ued 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 recommen- dations. The 300 winners announced on Janu- ary 7, will be whittled down to around 40 of the top finalists on January 21, 2026, and the Awards Ceremony will be held in Washington, 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 Harvest- ing Using Biomaterials: 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 Neuroepithelial Circuit by Laraz- otide Acetate and Neuregulin-1 Restores Epithelial Barrier Integrity in Food Allergy Anusha Agarwal, Age: 17 Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Virginia Project Title: Multigrid-Inspired Neural Operators for Real-Time Brain Biome- chanics PredictionWith Spectrally-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 Norepineph- rine Across Breast Cancer Grades via “Ele- ment 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-Calibrat- ed 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-Crosslinked Nano- cellulose 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 Pacemakers Using 2.4 GHz EM Waves Aniruth Ananthanarayanan, Age: 18 Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sci- ence, 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 Classification of Fast Radio Bursts Adhithi Arun, Age: 18 Livingston High School, New Jersey Project Title: Platelets Promote Multiple Myeloma Cell Survival and Immune Eva- sion Through Soluble Factors and NK Cell Modulation Shruti Arun, Age: 18 Cherry Creek High School, Colorado Project Title: On the Double of an Endy- mion Algebra in Characteristic 2 Vedant Balani, Age: 17 Jericho Senior High School, NewYork Project Title: Hurricane Forecasting Using Comprehensive 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 Identify Brain-Behavior Rela- tionships 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 Transhumeral Prostheses That Autonomously Regulates and Adjusts to Socket–Limb Pressure To Improve Ampu- tee 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 In- hibition 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 Myco- bacterium 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 Comparison of Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Large Language Models Ryka Chopra, Age: 17 Mission San Jose High School, California Project Title: Designing Incentive- Compatible Cooperation for the Global Commons: A Reinforcement Learning-In- tegrated 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 Architecture 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 Neu- rologically Intact Non-Verbal Neuromus- cular Patients Jashvi Desai, Age: 18 Yorktown High School, NewYork Project Title: Neuroinflammatory Sig- natures and Compensatory 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 Learning Framework for Robust and Practical Prediction of Cisplatin Re- sponse in Human Tumors Samanyu Krishna Ganesh, Age: 18 TheWestminster Schools, Georgia Project Title: Characterizing Variations in the Ruelle Zeta Function Under Confor- mal Perturbations to the Metrics of Nega- tively Curved Riemannian 2-Manifolds Anand Sebastian George, Age: 17 University School of Milwaukee, Wiscon- sin Project Title: Prediction of Infection Risk in Multiple Myeloma Patients Treated With Bispecific Antibodies: Neural Net- work and Ensemble Approaches Danika Gupta, Age: 17 The Harker School, California By a StaffWriter PHOTO:SOCIETYFORSCIENCE.ORG Announcement about the Regeneron Science Talent competition for 2026. - Continued On Page 12