 So I thought, maybe I better get up here. Okay, all right, I know it has been a long day for all of you when you're the seniors somehow, you know, you're older, so everybody says, oh, you can wait till the end. But you know what, the best things come to those who wait. So here you are. Congratulations on a great day. How was your judging experience? Was it okay? Was it good? Was it great? Was it amazing? Where are we in this spectrum? I can't hear you, have old ears. Okay, well, hopefully you met a lot of very interesting judges who were excited about talking to you and wanted to learn more about your project and encourage you to continue to participate in science and engineering research. This is just the beginning for you. Now, every single one of you will not walk out the door with an award. But every single one of you has achieved an amazing accomplishment. There are some of you who had to compete. Now, not everybody, some of you had a school fair, some of you had a county fair, some of you, and then everybody had to go to a regional fair before you were selected to come to us. Some of you were able to come directly to a regional fair, but you had some stiff competition. So in order to make it to the state level science and engineering fair, you need to realize that you have accomplished a great deal. We've had, you know, you think of all the thousands of students in North Carolina, and you have been able to achieve something very few of you have been able to accomplish. So whether you take home a prize or not today, you need to realize that you've accomplished a lot. You're special. And I am very excited to know you and to read about your projects. And hopefully you'll continue working in the field. Now Tom Williams is behind me saying I was supposed to be making up time instead of musing up more time. So I am going to officially welcome you to the senior NCSEF, North Carolina Science and Engineering Fair, 2024 awards ceremony. Good afternoon. I'm glad you've all survived. We need to give a special thanks to the person in the back of the room who is responsible for the streaming service that we've had and his wife too. Ram is assistant back there. Hasn't been working alone. That's Jeff Hattley and he's from the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. So we really greatly appreciate your time and your service and the virtual students, I hope you were able to get the link so you were able to follow along with the awards ceremony. You may notice at times that when we call out an award that a student may not come forward. Remember we did have virtual judging on Wednesday. So we had about 54 projects in that judging experience. So there are some award winners that are coming from there as well. So we are thankful to be back here at North Carolina State University and the good thing is, is by the time you get through the traffic from the basketball game should be over with and it should be easier for you to get out. So I would like to again congratulate all of you and I would like to recognize Dr. Gary Kelly who is the chairman of our Board of Directors for the North Carolina Science Fear Foundation. All righty, thank you, Judy. Good afternoon again. Uh-oh. Do we fall asleep that quick? All right, let's try one more time. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Perfect, perfect, that's the way I like it. All right, I am honored to be the chairman of the foundation, the North Carolina Science Fear Foundation as the non-profit sponsor of the North Carolina Science and Engineering Fair. We are very, very proud to be the long-time state affiliate to the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair for our Senior Division Grand Awards and for the second year, the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge Award. On behalf of our board, the Science and Engineering Fair Planning Committee, our many judges and volunteers and our devoted regional directors, we want to congratulate each and every one of you for being a regional winner and a state finalist and for your initiative to engage in science and or engineering research. Well done. In addition, we'd definitely be remiss if we didn't acknowledge our over 170 judges and our over 125 volunteers who were so instrumental in making today happen. In addition, I want to give a huge shout out to all the teachers, your mentors, the parents, everyone who came here to support you all, a huge thank to you all as well. And this wouldn't happen without your assistance. Before we recognize our award recipients, I'd just like to do another shout out to our Platinum sponsors, Burroughs Welcome Fund, the Good Night Educational Foundation, the North Carolina Science, Mathematics and Technology Education Center, our Gold Sponsors, RTI, DLH, Pfizer, the Broadcom Foundation, North Carolina Central University, College of Health and Sciences, the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory, our Silver Sponsors, the Strategic Educational Alliances, our Bronze Sponsors, Rowe, Red Hat, Smith's and Net Architecture, Crea Therapeutics, Bolton and Mink and also our NCSEF partners, North Carolina State University, Meredith College, Strawberry Studios and Stem Wizard. Please join me in a round of applause and thank us for these sponsors. Now we're on to the good part. Are you all ready? Are you sure you're ready? All right. Well, it is my pleasure to introduce our MC for today's Senior Division Awards, Dr. Rachel Graham of the University of North Carolina Gilling School of Global Public Health and our long-time co-chair in our SRC committee. Dr. Rachel. Okay. Your patience is about to be rewarded. I want to join with my partners up on stage here in welcoming you and thanking you for all the work that you've done. Parents, teachers, students, all of you have done a tremendous amount to get to this point today. I would also like to, on behalf of the North Carolina Science Fair Foundation, express a special appreciation to Judy Day as a long-serving volunteer, a director of the NCSEF for her leadership and to our regional directors who have also been with us for years and for some decades. So thank you. I'd also like to thank Tom Williams, who's standing right behind me, who serves with Judy this year as our co-director of the fair and has agreed to serve as volunteer director starting January 1st of this year. As Judy steps down, Tom has been active with the NCSEF for the past 16 years and has also served as educator in residence for the Scientific Review Committee for most of that time. So thank you, Tom. I'd like to join with Gary in thanking North Carolina State University for serving as our host site for these past four years. So thank you very much. And I should remind everyone before I start presenting the awards in just a moment here, while you may not walk away with an award today, you have won because you have gotten here and you have gotten here through your own efforts, through your own determination. And that is something that you should be very, very proud of. And I also want to give a plug to our social media. The site formerly known as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, we have handles for all of those. So share your success. Okay. When they come across this day, it will send me a picture. So when you come across, you come across from this direction. And then you'll shake hands and then proceed this direction to Coleman, where you will be taken for pictures. Okay. So let's get started with special awards. We'll start with North Carolina One Water. Third place, Adarsh Lakshmanan. Second place, Elizabeth Nevin. And Olivia Alexander. First place, Rashid Shandrakul. And we have awards with the Department of Defense next. And I believe we have guest presenters for these. Starting with the Air Force Awards, Avni Vamuri, Nicholas Moore, for the U.S. Agency for International Development, Shubhan Basacharya. For the Stockholm Junior Water Prize. Did we get the award? Did we get the certificate for the Stockholm award? That's only given out from one water. If they didn't win me, they didn't win me. Okay. For the Stockholm Junior Water Prize, the nominations go to Abinav Maduri. And Rashid Shandrakul. All right. So back to some Department of Defense awards. The Office of Naval Research, Naval Science Award goes to Elizabeth Nevin and Olivia Alexander. And Jaden Mew. The United States Army will also have awards for various categories, starting with Biological Science A. Arya Nayir. And Ajana Shrindy. U.S. Army Biological Science B Award goes to Olivia Yang. U.S. Army Chemistry Award, Makaija Hanna. U.S. Army Earth and Environmental Science Award goes to Harini Balaji. U.S. Army Physics Award goes to Nashemi Anomali. U.S. Army Mathematics, Statistics and Data Science Award goes to Harshil Jaga. U.S. Army Engineering Award goes to Banak Scott and Lizette Riaz-Voltez. U.S. Army Technology Award goes to Maxwell Stelsitz. All right. The NOAA Taking the Pulse of the Planet Award goes to Teresa Fang. Our next award, I believe we also have a guest presenter, the Association of Women in Science, North Carolina Chapter. The award goes to Emily Martinez. Our next award is Creating a Better World, Girl Scouts of North Carolina, Coastal Pines. And that award goes to Gillian Molina. The Society for Invitro Biology Award goes to Ji Yu Cao. The NASA Earth System Science Award goes to William Fund. The RTI Turning Knowledge and Depractice Award goes to Amy Okonkwa. The Yale Science and Engineering Association Award goes to Jamie Chen. The American Psychological Association Award for Achievement in Research in Psychological Science goes to Jith Nambiar. The Association for Women Geoscientists Award for Excellence in Geosciences goes to Teresa Fang. She's a rule follower. She's going up the long way. US Metrics Association Award for Excellence in the Use of Metrics is Ariman Shukla. The RICO Sustainable Development Award goes to Amy Rose. The Regeneron Biomedical Science Award goes to Amy Okonkwa. And our final special award, the DLH Award for Excellence in Public Health. We have a guest presenter for that as well. That award goes to Ken O'Jung. We're ready to start the category awards for the senior division. These awards are given to the projects that the judges deemed were the best representatives of the work done in their respective categories. Will Palace, yeah. Sorry, we're going to pause for a second to allow kids to come back from the photos. I don't have any vamp material, I'm sorry. We've already learned that nobody's going to do a dance for you, so. Not dance, not dance inclined or talented. What was someone's best experience today? Anybody? The food? Really? Okay. Anybody else? The judge interaction was really interesting today. Judge interaction, great. We like to hear that. I want to know who came the farthest today. Coleman was it, where's Coleman? He went. Who drove more than three hours to get here? Who drove more than four hours to get here? Anybody drive five hours to get here? There's no pride, I'm sorry, I'm just figuring it out. Four hours is long. Four hours is long. It's four and a half hours to Knack's head from here, so that's a long way. Who's the furthest west? Anybody from Boone? Close to Boone? Further west than Boone? They go southern, they can go further west. We got one back over here, couple over here. Where'd she come from? Okay. How about East? Anybody from the Outer Banks? Wilmington? Couple from Wilmington? Good, all right. It's our goal as a foundation to bring STEM research to all 100 counties in the state, so we are trying our best, and you guys are a great representation of that. This is me vamping, by the way. How are we doing, Coleman? Okay, great. Where'd Tom go? Okay, I don't know. Okay, well let's get started with the Senior Category Awards. All right, let's start with Earth and Environmental Science. We're going to go from honorable mention to first place, when you hear your name come up. For honorable mention, we have Ariyaman Shukla, Logan Tamadan, second place, Adarsh Lakshmanan. And first place in Earth and Environmental Science, William Fung. Moving on to Chemistry Awards, starting with honorable mention, Smruti Patil. Third place, Rashid Shandrakul. Second place, Abhinav Maduri. And first place in Chemistry, Siddharth Maravada. Moving on to the category of Engineering, beginning with honorable mention, Akabra Rosen. Third place, the team of Carolina Jones, Indu Garadaju, and Lucas Saris. If you happen to win as part of a team, we do have plaques for all of you, but we only have one to give out. So you gotta flip a coin to figure out who takes it home today. For second place, Rafael Cohn. For first place in Engineering, Jamie Chang. Moving to the category of Technology, beginning with honorable mention, Adam Stone. In third place, Maxwell Stelsis. In second place, Maruthi Vemula. And in first place in the category of Technology, Abhishek Shah. Next category is the category of Physics, beginning with honorable mention, Ankit Biswas. Third place, Sutharsika Kumar. Second place, Nashami Anamalai. In first place in the category of Physics, Davin Tipton. Our next category is Mathematics, Statistics and Data Science, starting with honorable mention, Zayna Khan. Third place, Alice Chen. Second place, Kenna Zhang. Accepting on behalf of Kenna is her brother. In first place in the category of Mathematics, Statistics and Data Science, we have the team of Pratishruth Kamal, Venkata Balmudi. Category of Biological Science, B. Starting with third place, Viswajith Nambiar. Second place, Sreja Apala. In first place in the category of Biological Science, B. Bianca Chan. Our last category awards today are going to Biological Science, A. Beginning with honorable mention, Lane Tompkins. Third place, Linda Shwey. Second place, Isabel Garcia. In first place in the category of Biological Sciences, A. Amy Okonkowo. That concludes our category awards, but before we move to the presentation of the grand awards, we want to take a pause. First to allow people to come back from pictures, but also to do the raffle, the passport raffle. Fulfilling out your passport and submitting it there, you have the chance of getting a $25 cash award. There'll be two of those. And a scholarship to a North Carolina School of Science and Math Online Summer Accelerator Program. Also two of those. Those are your cash prize winners. Okay. For the cash prize, we have, I'm reading your handwriting, so if I get it wrong, I'm sorry. Peter Soon. And Sandria Richards. We shall see. And now drawing for the scholarship to the NCSSM Online Summer Accelerator Program. Again, there are two awards of that. We'll email them information to get in touch with the science and math to sign up. Okay, the winners of this award will be emailed information for how to sign up for it after today. The first winner, Zhiyu Cao. And the second winner is Claire Fields. Those two are going to pass it. Okay, I... I wish I knew if the video was embedded. I don't know, let me see. But let's show everybody. We're debating advancing because we're not sure if there's a video here or not. We don't want to surprise anybody before we're ready. No video? There is a video. Okay, thank you, Gabby. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Yes. I'm George Mera, president and CEO of the Society for Science and executive publisher of Science News. Congratulations on participating in your local science fair. The society founded the International Science and Engineering Fair in 1950. Today, the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair is the largest pre-collegiate STEM competition in the world. We are proud to have built this fair over 70 years ago. When we began the National Science Fair, which is what the event was once called, it included only a handful of fairs. Today, we have over 400 affiliated science fairs that participate from 80 countries, regions, and territories. When I was in high school, I competed in science fairs and it changed my life. And I know it will do the same for you. I'm so proud of each and every young person who's competing today. You are poised to solve our world's most intractable problems. I wish everyone the best of luck. You are an inspiration to your community and the world. I'm George Ann Cobblis, Regeneron's co-founder, president, and chief scientific officer. When I co-founded Regeneron, along with my business partner, Len Schleifer, more than 30 years ago, we had a clear vision to build a company driven by science, a company where the scientists were the heroes. Every day at Regeneron, we translate science into medicine. We use our homegrown technologies to discover and deliver life-transforming medicines that help people and change their lives. At Regeneron, we want to help find and inspire the next generation of scientific innovators. That's why we sponsored both the Regeneron Science Channel Search and Regeneron ISAF, in partnership with the Society for Science to help inspire, celebrate, and elevate young scientific superstructure. All the students here today are poised to be the scientific heroes of tomorrow. You may have the potential to find solutions to the existential threats we face today and the major challenges we will be facing in the future. Congratulations to all of the student researchers here today, and also to their teachers, their mentors, and their parents who supported them throughout this challenging year. And a big thank you to the fair directors, organizers, and volunteer judges who have made it possible for students to have the opportunity to compete at Regeneron ISAF. Finally, the moment we have been waiting for. I am honored to introduce the Regeneron ISAF finalists who have won the right to compete for awards and distinction in the largest high school STEM competition in the world. Good luck to all the students who will be competing in the Regeneron ISAF. Should we say they're all made afterwards? Do we have clearance to go? Okay, yes. If we call your name as a Regeneron ISAF finalist, come up and accept, I believe we have a packet for you, but please also, once we conclude this ceremony, don't leave, come up here because Ms. Day will want to speak with you. We have to collect some information for you. A photograph as well. There will be a photograph as well, but then come back after the photograph so that we can get some information from you and give you some instructions. Okay? Yes, shall I tell what it is? Go ahead. Okay, for those of you who do not know, attending ISAF this year would be one week in Los Angeles, California. It would be from May 12th. We would be returning on May 18th. So during COVID, I actually spent Mother's Day with my children. We always leave on Mother's Day, so you celebrate the day before. But it is an amazing week that is jam-packed and we will go into some of the details and preparations. We have a very short turnaround. We only have 12 days after our fair to get everything done. So that's why we will have to meet afterwards, but it's a life-changing experience. All right, our senior judges have awarded this finalist status to 12 projects this year. Starting with Siddharth Maravuda, for design, synthesis and testing of novel small molecule interleukin-6 inhibitors for the amelioration of inflammatory bowel disease. Next is Abhinav Maduri, for his work, Enhancing Lead Sequestration and Power Conversion Efficiency in Organic-Inorganic-Led Halide Parascovite Solar Cells via Alginate L-cysteine Biopolymer Encapsulation. Next is Jamie Zhang, Allergel and Inhalable Bioadhesive Microspheres to Prevent Particulate Matter-Induced CRDs and CRS. Our fourth finalist will be Abhishek Shah, Studio, a novel fully voice-controlled and configurable development environment for the visually impaired. Our fifth finalist is Maruthi Vimula, for Mitigating Information Asymmetry in Governmental Policies and AI-Driven Approach. Six finalists, Amy Unconquo, a genetically modifying wild-type K-12 E. Coli for the MTRC gene for production of cytochrome C and microbial fuel cell application. Next is Isabel Garcia, for developing a cost-effective alternative to treating small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or SIBO. Our next finalist is Sreja Apala, unraveling the complex interplay between immune cells and cancer progression utilizing a novel application of an artificial neural network. Next is Davin Tipton, for his work Analyzing the Effects of General Relativity on Hypervelocity Star Ejection Velocities. Our ninth finalist is Bianca Chan, for the work Identifying Inhibitors and Inducers of the Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres, Pathway Through the Development of a High-Throughfoot Phenotypic Screen. It came up before I wanted it to, but anyway, Preeti Shrut Kamal and Venkadan Vlada Moody. Our 11th finalist for Dynagrad, a novel gradient descent with adaptive dual learning rates and momenta for improved optimization and accelerated convergence in deep neural networks. I thought I wrote long titles to papers. And finally, William Fung, for a novel approach on determining aragonite saturation state through remote sensing and machine learning techniques. These are our Intel ISEF finalists. Congratulations. Just a quick photo, please. Thank you. Congratulations. As we're winding up today, a reminder please, Intel ISEF finalists do not leave before you come back and see Miss Day. We would also like to extend some thanks to some people and groups, especially for our exhibitors for being with us again this year. And we also would like to thank you for allowing us to spend time with you today. And we want to wish you good luck in all of your future endeavors. So at this time, I'd like to invite our co-director, Dr. Tom Williams, to come forward for some closing remarks. And thank you. Thank you, Dr. Graham. And I just wanna say, once again to each and every one of our students here today, we are so grateful to you for your thoughtfulness, your hard work, your perseverance, your innovative ideas, you're willing to take a risk, push yourselves, we want you to continue to do that. And we applaud you on all of your successes. We also wanna once again extend our thanks to NC State University for hosting us here so that we can have a facility large enough to have everybody in one place, under one gym to where the general public can come in and see the amazing work that students in North Carolina are doing in STEM research from grades three through 12. I hope each of you, as senior students had a chance to poke around and look at what the next generation of competition looks like. It's amazing the work that you're doing and students across the state. I would like to just give one round of applause to the host on the stage here who have been with us all year long. Congratulations, Judy, Harry, Eshaan, and Dr. Graham. Please have a safe travel home. We hope you enjoy the rest of your day and the rest of your weekend. Thank you and we'll see you in March of 2025. Thank you.