 Students, I would want to congratulate you again. I know you've gotten congratulations from other people, but making it to the state level of the Science and Engineering Fair is something to be celebrated. There are many of you that had a school fair, then a county fair, then a regional fair before you got to the state fair. So you have won in multiple places to be able to qualify to be here. And so whether you win an award at this or not, you please remember that you have already been recognized and we recognize all of you as being outstanding scientists and engineers and looking in technology and math and you are our future and we really want you to continue. Now you wouldn't be here today if you had not had the support of parents and teachers and others that support you. So if you haven't done it already, please remember to give them a thank you. And I see a bunch of parents around the room, so students, I think they need some applause. Thank you. We're always clapping for you when you win something, but how often do we thank them and give them applause as well? So this is the 35th anniversary of the North Carolina Science and Engineering Fair and we're still going strong and we are definitely excited to be back at NC State University as a hybrid event for students that participated virtually on Thursday morning and those of you who participated today in person. So am I, I'm Tony again. OK, all right. So I'm getting to wear new hats. All right, so as I have been the state science and engineering fair director now for 21 years and during that time, the fair has been blessed with the support of a lot of wonderful individuals. And one of those that I was supposed to be recognizing is Dr. Tony Rice, who is our North Carolina Science Fair Foundation chair board member. And he has helped to get all of this going and keep everything underway. I would also like to say we are the state affiliate to the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair for the State for the senior division, our award winners, and this year for the first time, our junior winners are eligible for the new Thermo Fisher junior innovators challenge. And that is a national competition that our junior students can be nominated for and they spend a week in Washington DC, but they narrow it down to only 30 people. So that's a lot tougher competition for y'all. That's the entire nation. They narrow it down to 30 people. So I would like to thank the over 150. I think we had actually 160 judges that are all volunteers that came to judge you, either today or on Thursday. That felt like coming and talking with you was about your research was important enough that they've taken their weekend to be able to spend it with you. And we had over 125 volunteers that came in and made this possible as well. And I would personally like to thank all of those that have made it work. Our organization as a whole is over 99% volunteer. We have one halftime employee that I would like to recognize. Ms. Tawania Smith is standing behind me. Hi, ma'am. And she is our executive director and everybody else is a volunteer to make this event happen. So whenever you start sending me 150 emails in one day, remember I'm a volunteer. I don't get through them as fast as I can. But it's something I think every one of us, we believe in, is the future for each of you. Before we go on to our award recipients, I'd like to recognize some of our wonderful sponsors that we've had. And the first two slides, we have first our platinum level sponsors. And the next slide, we have our gold and our bronze level sponsors without their financial support, the work of our nonprofit organization and this competition would not be possible. And please join me in expressing your gratitude for all of these corporations. So I would now like to introduce our emcee for the senior division awards, which is what you're really waiting for. You can hear less about what I'm saying, you want to hear what he has to say. So Dr. Alonzo Alexander was with the science house here at NC State University. And one of the groups that I need to especially think is North Carolina State University as our host. Now that we're back in person, they were a host before we went virtual suddenly in 2020. And it's nice to be back and having the support of the division of academic and student affairs to help fund the ability and our being here at the university. All right, so Dr. Alexander, I will pass it on to you. Thank you so much Judy. And I just want to say on behalf of the North Carolina Science Fair Foundation, you know, one of the people that Judy did not think just now was Judy Day who is the director of NC Science and Engineering Fair and her leadership we could not do without you. So can you guys give her a round of applause for us? Thank you so much. Of course, I also want to thank the regional directors who make this event happen. Our executive director, as Judy said, Stefania Smith, thank you so much. Yes. And of course, all the folks who make this happen, especially your parents, your teachers, and of course your mentors on these projects. We've already mentioned North Carolina State University. I have a program here at NC State for middle school students. So I don't get to see as many high school students as I'm seeing right now. So I'm glad to see you all. Here at State, we have several people that we want to thank, Chancellor Randy Woodson, Vice Chancellor Dr. Danika Scott, and of course the division of Academic and Student Affairs team for their support for this event. Now, I know you all have heard this before, so you know, bear with me. Just know that by being in this room, right, you all are winners. You are winners, right? Yes? Yes, you are. You are winners, yes. Give yourselves a round of applause. That's right. Advancing to this level of the competition from the local and regional levels, that's pretty awesome. All right? So we are happy to have you with us. And of course, I think they want me to go ahead and get right into the award. So let me switch over and go ahead and do that before I start getting yelled at. All right, yes, I'm about to remind you. Now, you all know we're going to start with our special award. I've got to scroll to them, so give me just a second. When you get called, please come on this side of the stage. Come on this side of the stage, that's right. You'll come up, you'll grab your award, and you'll head out on this side of the stage, and you'll head right over there to take a photo with your award. So everybody got that? All right, very good. You all are your high school students. I know you can figure it out. We're going to start with our special awards category. First, the American Psychological Association Certificate of Award. This award goes to Maximus Wilmo, the effects of bias on human decision making. Maximus is at Swain County High School. Next, the Association for Women Geosciences Award for Excellence in Geosciences. It goes to Dakota Cornet, seed drilling for our oceans. Dakota's at Rockingham County Early College. Now, our Association of Women in Science, North Carolina Chapter Award goes to Allison Owens, AABMCOP, applying agent-based modeling to COVID-19 outbreaks in prisons. Allison's at North Carolina School of Science and Math. Congratulations. Now, our Carolina Biological Award for Excellence. It goes to Jessica Fan, synergistic use of Astrolagus, polysaccharides, and metformin as an alternative type of glycemic treatment for type 2 diabetes modeled in Bombics Mori. Also at School of Science and Math. Now, our Girl Scouts of North Carolina Coastal Pines, creating a Better World Award, goes to McKenna Merritt, fork it up, Surrey Central High. Now, our DLH Award for Excellence in Public Health. That one goes to Venkata Varshith, Vadlamudi, Respiscope, a novel, low-cost, highly accurate, easy-to-use, and portable convolutional neural network digital stethoscope with respiratory disease classification. He's at Enlo High, right here in Raleigh. Our NASA Earth System Science Award goes to Abraham McTeague-Polspachil and Wilson Davis, identifying Kudzu through satellite images. And they're recognized at Charles Owen Middle and Charles Owen High. Thank you. That's Geography, Cultivating Empathy for the Earth Award. It goes to the team of Aiden Lee, Shetizh Govill, and Aiden McQueen, using hyperspatial LIDAR and multispectral imaging to identify coastal wetlands using gradient-boosting methods. They're at Marvin Ridge High. Congratulations. Now our NC One Water Awards. First, Kavya Tilavainan and Rishi Soroya utilizing wastewater treatment mechanics in the removal of microplastic from freshwater bodies. Oh, third place. And that's third place. And they're at Panther Creek out in Cary. Second place, Amelia Linton, simultaneous removal of heavy metal ions by our reusable hybrid lysine-functionalized magmite and zinc oxide nanoparticle decorated bio-car model. Amelia's at North Carolina School of Science and Math. You can tell by the cheers in the front from the group, right? And then first place with our NC One Water Awards, Nathan Boost, synthesis of hydroxyapatite nanorahs to create nanochannels in a semipermeable polyamide membrane to improve water flux in reverse osmosis filtration. Also at North Carolina School of Science and Math. Now we're gonna present our Office of Naval Research, Naval Science Award. And we've got a special guest coming up to help us present those awards. First, Lauren Zarevil, a novel approach to ocean liming using rapidly degrading bioplastics derived from upcycled waste products and calcium carbonate to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and reduce ocean acidification. Lauren's at Terry Sanford High in Fayetteville. Brian Zhang, a novel method in improving the accuracy of exoplanet classification using machine learning. If you guys hadn't figured it out, Brian's from Inla. And Pranav Pamula, training a convolutional neural network to classify galaxies by morphological characteristics from Weddington High and Matthews. And now our Regeneron Biomedical Science Award. It goes to Ayesha Mahadeshwar, identifying sensitivity of cortical regions and elucidating viable biomarkers for Parkinson's patients using network analysis. Ayesha's at North Carolina School of Science and Math. Congratulations. Moving on to our Stockholm Junior Water Prize nomination. First, Amelia Linton, simultaneous removal of heavy metal ions by reusable hybrid glycine functionalized magmite and zinc oxide nanoparticle-decorated bio-car model. And Nathan Boost, synthesis of hydroxyapatite nanorods to create nano-channels in a semi-permeable polyamide membrane to improve water flux in reverse osmosis filtration. And they are both from the School of Science and Math. All right. Next, we have our United States Air Force Award. The first one goes to Leo Pardmenter, E-M-A-L-S, emails. And Ian Branigan, a photometric search for atmospheres around Kepler K2 exoplanets through comparison with test data. And Ian's from North Carolina School of Science and Math. And now it's time for our United States Army Awards in Biological Science A. And we've got some special guests coming up to present some special awards to those winners. First, the team of Elizabeth Niven and Olivia Alexander. Unintended consequences of good intentions. They're from Isaac Bear Early College out in Wilmington. Isabel Garcia. Bacteria are adjusting to our antibiotics. It's time to try something new. Also from Isaac Bear Early College in Wilmington. And Arvind Deshmuk and Sreethan Ghazula, polyethylene plastic degradation by environmental bacterial isolates in landfill-like conditions. That team is from Marvin Ridge High. And Carter Hull, embryo flush explained from North Surrey High. Now we're gonna move on to our Army Awards for Biological Science B. First, Liza Green, determining the correlation between sleep habits and perception of mental health. From Charles Owen High School. And Lyndon James, thyroid hormone treatment of neurological trauma using Galeria Melanella, North Carolina School of Science and Math. All right. And now we're gonna move on to the Army Awards for, yeah, that's right, chemistry. That's right. We've invented a new field. That's right. The chemistry awards are going to McKenna Merritt for Fork It Up at Surrey Central. And Nathan Vost. I'm not gonna read all of that again, Nathan. Come on up to the stage. All right, moving on to the Army Award for Earth and Environmental Science. Logan Tamadon, fatal attraction, the effects of plastic and biodegradable products on their surrounding environment from Isaac Bear Early College. And Rayyanche Ball, mapping soil organic carbon for regenerative agriculture and reducing atmospheric carbon using multi-spectral satellite imagery and machine learning. Rayyanche is from Green Hope. Moving on to our Army Awards in Engineering. Gabriel Mintz and Wyatt Haynes, that team had the project, further exploring the potential application of using a metal oxide gas sensor to monitor muscle fatigue and hydration levels of athletes. They're from Marvin Ridge. Arshah Ananish Prajapati, using the rotational energy of an electrical car to recharge the reserve batteries from Panther Creek. And Brendan Henson, developing a nozzle design to minimize powder dispersion. They're from Hendersonville High. And now we'll do our Army Awards for Physics and Mathematics. First, Mayira Sediqui, harvesting EMF energy from electronics from South Iardale High out in Statesville. Nachamai Anamalai, testing background radiation shielding methods in a cloud chamber, also from South Iardale. And Jonathan Strickland, using advanced mathematical modeling and multi-variant statistical analysis to predict Coretta Coretta nest hatches given local meteorological data. That was probably Nathan. You can't hold all that stuff, can you Nathan? That's fine. All right, and now, our United States Army Award for Technology. Anisha Benet and Aditya Benet, the team who did the project detecting fake news, a machine learning approach from Wataga High out in Boone. Congratulations and let's give a round of applause to all of our special award winners. All right. Thank you gentlemen. Yes. They didn't come up? Yeah, I did them though, right? Okay. And yeah, maybe, it didn't say. Or they left, okay. All right, we're gonna move on to Biological Science A. First, honorable mention, Carter Hull, Embryo Flush Explained from North Surrey. Third place, Talon Keeler, Effective Interic Co-operator Bacteria on BT's Exogenous Toxin Production from Atkins Academic and Technology High School out in Winston-Salem. Second place, Arvind Deshmuk and Shreethan Ghazula, Polyethylene Plastic Degradation by Environmental Bacterial Isolates in Landfill-like Conditions. And first place, Isabel Garcia. Bacteria are adjusting to our antibiotics. It's time to try something new from Isaac Bear Early College. And let's give a round of applause to all of our Biological Science A winners. Moving to Biological Science B. Honorable mention, Aisha Mahadeshwar, Identifying Sensitivity of Portable Regions and Elucidating Viable Biomarkers for Parkinson's patients using network analysis. Again, from North Carolina School of Science and Math. Third place, Rayyan Syed, Exploring the Correlation between Mismatch Repair, MMR Genes and the Fraction of Genome Altered FGA and Glyoblastoma Multiform Patients from Cannon School out in Concord. Second place, Carter Shrag, Inducing Osmotic Stress in Allegiance to Observe Mutation Bias in GPDH1 from the North Carolina School of Science and Math. And first place in Biological Science B. Maximilian Wong, Production of Recombinant Cataract Inducing Alpha B Crystalline with E. Coli from Isaac Bear Early College. Now we're gonna move into chemistry. Honorable mention, Maya Roseborough and Scott McFarland, that team did Designing and Optimizing Injection Technique for Single Guide RNA of Glutathione Synthetase and Gemma Glutomyscistine Synthetase. Wow, I am a physicist, not a biologist. For Denny Ririo, Glutathione Knockout. Wow, they are from Isaac Bear. I can't say that. Congratulations. Third place in Chemistry, Nathan Bost from the North Carolina School of Science and Math. Come on up, Nathan. Second place, Sruti Patil, using time-resolved fluorescence microscopy to study molecular dynamics of the RISC, of the RISC-7 NSA-1 interaction in the ribosome assembly pathway. Sruti is from in Lohai. Go take your picture, that's right. And first place in Chemistry, Grace Ultos, Design and Synthesis of Ecliptac Probe Molecule for the treatment of EGFR mutated adeno carcinoma. From the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. Congratulations. In Earth and Environmental Science, our honorable mention goes to Abigail Zoo, PDMaps Hydrogel for controlled release fertilizer application on plants under salt stress from North Carolina School of Science and Math. Third place, Logan Tamadan, fatal attraction, the effects of plastic and biodegradable products on their surrounding environment from Isaac Bear. Second place, Riley Johnson, designing an activated carbon filter to reduce water contamination from firewater runoff from Charles Owen High School up in Black Mountain. And first place in Earth and Environmental Science, Rayon Shpal, mapping soil organic carbon for regenerative agriculture and reducing atmospheric carbon using multi-spectral satellite imagery and machine learning. From Green Hope High School, I don't care. Now on to engineering. Honorable mention in engineering goes to the team of Tanav Kalindi and Samir Khan, analyzing the influence of algal blooms on temperature, humidity, ammonia, air contaminants, odorous gases, VOCs and organic solvent vapors from Green Hope High. Third place, Lauren Zurevil, a novel approach to ocean liming using rapidly degrading bioplastics derived from upcycled waste products and calcium carbonate to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and reduce ocean acidification. This is a reminder, Lauren's from Terry Samford. Second place, Abhinav Gauram and Ethan Sood. A-R-A-I-D, a novel real-time augmented reality and artificial intelligence driven navigation system and pipeline for cardiovascular surgery. They're from Green Hope. And first place in engineering goes to Naveen Ramasamy, near-wall vorticity as an indicator of Marfan syndrome from the North Carolina School of Science and Math. Congratulations. Moving into mathematics, statistics and data science. Honorable mention, Zena Khan, modeling non-linear transformations which reduced the approximation error between the diffusion equation model and Monte Carlo model for photon transport in diffuse optical tomography from Marvin Ridge. Third place, Jonathan Strickland, using advanced mathematical modeling and multivariate statistical analysis to predict Coretta Coretta nest hatches given local meteorological data from Isaac Bear. Second place, Arahant Singh, Taran Puvala and Venkata Vadlamudi. That team did identifying atrial fibrillation with stepping windows and they're from the early college at Guilford. You're in charge of that one. And first place in mathematics, statistics and data science goes to Yungia Kwan, improving bitcoins post-quantum transaction efficiency with a novel lattice-based aggregate signature scheme based on crystals dilithium and a stark protocol, Charlotte Country Day School. On to physics. Yep, all right, on to the physics awards, my favorite. I'm biased, you guys, right? Honorable mention, James Centers, finding the percentage of photon pass-through in different materials used in solar sales. James is from Charles Owen High School. Third place, Meira Siddiqui, harvesting EMF energy from electronics from South Ardill. Second place, Ankit Biswas, the discovery of 13 ultra-cool brown dwarf candidates from the UDS field with 1D atmosphere models and machine learning from Providence High in Charlotte. And first place in physics, Brian Zhang, a novel method in improving the accuracy of exoplanet classification using machine learning from Enlo High School right here in Raleigh. All right, you guys didn't hear that. Okay, now we're gonna move on to the technology awards. Honorable mention in technology, goes to Ari Ceda, computational models for identification of skin cancer from Ardri Kel High in Charlotte. Third place, Anisha Benet and Aditya Benet detecting fake news, a machine learning approach. Again, they're from Wataga High out in Boon. And second place, Vin Katavarshith, Vadlamudi, Respiscope, a novel low-cost, highly accurate, easy to use and portable, convolutional neural network digital stethoscope with respiratory disease classification. Vin Katavarshith from Enlo. And first place in technology, goes to the team of Rithintesha Aichan, Mehdi Hussein and Arnav Mahajan, inexpensive glasses for the visually impaired and blind using AI and OpenCV. They are from Green Hope High School in Cary. You're representing the whole team today. That's right. Or you just don't tell them. Yeah, you just keep that. Congratulations. All right. Okay. We need a tub for the drawing. All right, I think it's time for the, yes, the special drawings. Judy, are you gonna? This gives the time to get you ready for that. Okay, so when you put in your passports, hopefully you've kept the other parts, you've got all the contact information for everyone you talk to, and the back page you tour off. So the very first person is Maria Sidku and this is a thermo-fisher, Flasky. Now jean bottle, yeah? Now jean bottle. Okay, the next two are for a year subscription to the science news, and I actually take this as well. It's published by the Society for Science and that sponsors the, used to be Broadcom Masters and now the new sponsor is the thermo-fisher, Scientific, and also does ISAF and also does the student talent search. So the first one year subscription to that is to Samir Khan. And the other, the next person winning is from Shiro Rashid. Do we get somebody here? Yeah, I think so. Okay, all right, so we need another drawing. They have to be present to win. I didn't know. All right, so Kelly Smith. This is one that nobody, everybody gets kind of excited about. It's for a gift card. The first one of the gift cards goes to Maya Roseborough and the second gift card goes to Madi Husan. Next, Madi, here. Oh, another one? Ooh. Oh, he's here, he's here. Okay, you almost got it given away. Okay, so you need to go up too. Ready for her? Yeah. Okay, now I get the fun part. So every year, except for during COVID and last year when we were virtual, I have the honor to spend a week with students from all across North Carolina and take them to the International Science and Engineering Fair that is sponsored by Regeneron. And so our judges meet all the judges across the entire senior division, caucus, and decide which projects across the entire division should represent North Carolina in this competition and all of the expenses are paid for this event. It does not cost the students anything to participate for the week. It will be in Dallas, Texas this year. Unfortunately, moms, we always leave on Mother's Day. So if you celebrate a day early, my children have just gotten used to having me back again with COVID, but now I'm gonna be saying bye and we'll celebrate on Saturday. So the students that will be have been selected to accompany me on this trip as the students from the North Carolina Science and Engineering Fair, or if you'll come up to the front as I call your name, Isabella Garcia, Brian Zang, the team of now, I'm apologize for mispronouncing your names, Rithintia Achan, Ishan Mere Hussain, and Arnav Mahayan. And y'all have to teach me how to pronounce your names. Have to get the next slide. Rayyanish Baal, again pronunciation. Maximillin Wang, Grace Otos, Yunya Kwan, Naveen Ramase, Carter Sharag, Riley Johnson, Akit Biswa, Ahinya Garam, and Ethan Sood. Okay, these are our 12 projects that we represent North Carolina. And so you'll have to be watching. We will be posting information while they're there on all of our social media and keep track of them and wish them good luck. So it has been an amazing day. It has been wonderful to be back in person with all of you students. I congratulate each and every one of you, parents, thank you for all that you've done. I know it's a really late evening to be traveling back home. We understand that and we appreciate it. And please travel safely and hope to see many of you again next year. Thank you.