Kentucky Junior Academy of Science

2018 Annual Meeting
Saturday April 28
Kentucky State University, Frankfort, KY

Schedule of Events April 28 2018

Congratulations to all our 2018 participating young scientists!
See 2018 award winners and elected officers below:

2018 Award Winners
Grand Prize Winners
Grand Prizes, Group 1
1st: Rojin Shirwan
2nd: Aysha Puzhakkaraillath
3rd: Betty Ngo
Grand Prizes, Group 2
1st: Rachel Seevers
2nd: Will Drury
3rd: Sarvesh Babu
All grand prize winners will receive financial support from KAS to attend the American Junior Academy of Science meeting in Washington DC in February 2019, as Kentucky delegates.
Category Winners
High School Behavioral & Social Science
1st: Betty Ngo
2nd: Marco Munoz
3rd: Samhita Lellapalli
High School Biological Topics and Microbiology 1
1st: Aysha Puzhakkaraillath
2nd: Bhargar Ramesh
3rd: Nivedha Loganathan
High School Biological Topics and Microbiology 2
1st: Ishaan Jindal
2nd: Ellie Hummel
3rd: Elaina Render
High School Biological Topics and Microbiology 3
1st: Rojin Shirwan
2nd: Anne Liang
3rd: Jennifer Xu
High School Chemistry
1st: Vivian Pham
2nd: Elizabeth Gallagher
3rd: Nikhil Vangana and Sophie Ma
High School Engineering
1st: Rachel Seevers
2nd: Ray Suo and Vaibhav Vinukonda
3rd: Jiane Hu
High School Computer Science and Mathematics 1
1st: Sarvesh Babu
2nd: Sasmi Heellage
3rd: Sanya Dronawat and Karthik Jetty
High School Computer Science and Mathematics 2
1st: Nimish Mathur and Romith Paily
2nd:Stephanie Yang
3rd: Brian Schwartz
High School Earth and Space, Physics and Environmental Science
1st: Will Drury
2nd: Lily Gonzalez
3rd: Jack Boylan and Harshith Gontla
Middle School Group 1
1st: Ella Diehl
2nd: Smaran Alli
3rd: Varun Chandrashekhar
Middle School Group 2
1st: Sarah Kwasny
2nd: Varshini Loganathan
3rd: Maia Kuehne-Seeber
Middle School Group 3
1st: Avery Ramsey
2nd: Anirudh Srinivasan
3rd: Rishi Vinukonda

About the Kentucky Junior Academy of Science (KJAS)
The Junior Academy was begun  in the 1930’s to foster an interest in science for high school students in Kentucky.  KJAS eventually expanded to include middle school students. The Junior Academy holds its scientific meeting each April.
Preliminary oral presentations (10 minutes) are conducted during the morning sessions.  The winners of the high school morning sessions make presentations in the afternoon finalist sessions.  Six overall winners are selected and these students are invited to represent Kentucky at the American Junior Academies of Sciences (AJAS) meeting held in February the following year.
The AJAS convention meets in conjugation with NAAS, the National Association of Academies of Science, and AAAS, the American Association for the Advancement of Science. As the world’s largest general science organization and publisher of Science, AAAS has more than 138,000 members and 275 affiliated societies.
The Kentucky Junior Academy of Science is open to ANY middle or high school science student in the state of Kentucky. It offers middle- and high- school student scientists an opportunity to present their research project in the format of a 10 minute presentation with slides. This presentation may be based on research done and presented in a poster format for a science fair.

Students wishing to participate must submit an abstract and a research paper up to 10 pages.

Students present in the following categories:
  • Behavioral & Social Science
  • Biological Topics
  • Botany
  • Chemistry
  • Computer Science & Mathematics
  • Earth & Space Science
  • Engineering
  • Environmental Science
  • Microbiology
  • Physics
  • Zoology
Presentations are evaluated based on this rubric:  Junior Academy Score sheet
Awards are given in each category, and three overall winning projects are chosen from Life Sciences and Physical Sciences.  The Kentucky Academy of Science provides financial support for these students to participate in the American Junior Academy of Science meeting the following February, as follows: Two first place winning projects receive up to $1000.00 per project; Two Second and two third place winning projects receive up to $750 per project.  Funding will also be available for up to 2 chaperones (no more than one per school), up to a limit of $500/person. (In the case of team projects the amount is to be shared among team members).
2018 Kentucky Junior Academy of Science winners are eligible to be Kentucky’s delegates to the American Junior Academy of Science meeting in Washington DC in 2019.
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​Kentucky Junior Academy of Science officers 2018
President - Rachel Seevers
Vice President – Srikhar Padmanabhan
Secretary –Maia Kuehne-Seeber

Junior Academy director Melony Stambaugh
Co-chair Bruce Griffis, Kentucky State University
 
Kentucky Junior Academy of Science
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