On Saturday, Feb. 28, high school students from across the state presented their original research and competed for cash and prizes at the 63rd annual Connecticut High School Science and Humanities Symposium (CT HSSHS) at UConn Health in Farmington.
CT HSSHS is sponsored by UConn Health and organized by the Connecticut Area Health Education Center (CT AHEC).
CT HSSHS was formerly part of the federally funded Junior Science and Humanities Symposia program, which sponsored annual regional events around the country for over six decades, culminating in a national competition. Funding for that program, however, has been cut. Connecticut is one of a handful of regions nationwide that forged ahead to hold their own symposium this year.
The format for the 2026 Connecticut symposium was similar to that of years past, except that the winners will not go on to compete in a federally funded national competition. Instead, the Alabama symposium’s director is spearheading an interstate event for the regions that organized a competition this year. Each region’s top finishers will be invited to compete virtually with peers from other regions on April 25.
“The quality, depth, and originality of the research conducted by these students is truly extraordinary,” said Dr. Brittany Knight, site director of the CT HSSHS program. “What stands out most is their curiosity and resilience, qualities that will serve them well as they pursue meaningful careers in STEM and beyond. Despite the unexpected loss of federal funding this year, our Connecticut leadership team demonstrated remarkable creativity and commitment to ensure that students still had a platform to share their work. That dedication speaks volumes about the strength of this community.”
The following students took top honors at this year’s CT HSSHS.
Oral Competition
Of the more than 80 high school students who applied to present their research at the symposium, 16 were selected to give an oral presentation.
1st Place Oral Presenter: Tyler Malkin, sophomore, Greenwich High School, for his work on a novel drug-delivery system for surfactant proteins to more safely and effectively prevent neonatal respiratory distress syndrome.
2nd Place Oral Presenter: Sabrina Liu, sophomore, Choate Rosemary Hall, Wallingford, for developing NeuroMirror, a system that combines mirror therapy with real-time EEG monitoring for rehabilitating upper limbs after a stroke.
3rd Place Oral Presenter: Lucia Vivanco, senior, King School, Stamford, for her exploration of the use of nutrient additives to enhance the resilience of coral reefs against the damaging effects of climate change.
4th Place Oral Presenter: Aryan Shrivastav, junior, Amity Regional High School, Woodbridge, for his investigation of biologically derived luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) as a cost-effective, eco-friendly way to enhance the output of solar panels while maintaining optical transparency. As the highest-ranked junior at the symposium, Shrivastav also earned the UConn Academic Excellence Scholarship.
5th Place Oral Presenter: Ravindu Karunaratne, senior, Hamden Hall Country Day School, for his research on utilizing exfoliated graphite in a robotic autonomous device as an environmentally sustainable method to clean up oil spills.
Special Merit (6th – 10th Place): Marilyn Sommerville, King School; Sahithi Aliminate, Engineering and Science University Magnet School, West Haven; Rhea Doshi, Kingswood Oxford School, West Hartford; Armaan Shrivastav, Amity Regional High School; Nolan Francis, Staples High School, Westport.
Poster Competition
Twenty applicants were selected to present their research in poster format at the symposium.
1st Place Poster Presenter: Victoria Makarov, senior, Laurel Springs School (online), for her poster presentation on the use of mixed-integer nonlinear programming to more efficiently allocate public bus fleets across routes and time blocks in mid-sized cities, using Stamford, Connecticut, as a case study.
2nd Place Poster Presenter: Leon Wang, senior, King School, for investigating the repurposing of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis drugs to safely and effectively treat vascular Alzheimer’s dementia.
3rd Place Poster Presenter: Rithvik Suren, sophomore, CREC Academy of Aerospace and Engineering, Windsor, for creating and testing a prototype rover that incorporates a neuromorphic artificial intelligence system for autonomous exploration of extraterrestrial environments.
Backyard Scientist Awards
Two competitors were recognized for making creative use of resources “in their own backyards”: Rhea Doshi, Kingswood Oxford School, and Victoria Makarov, Laurel Springs School.
The student competitors virtually presented their research before a panel of judges the weekend before the symposium and then shared their work with a live audience of their peers on the day of the symposium. Another 38 students displayed their work in a noncompetitive online STEM poster exhibition.
In addition to UConn Health and CT AHEC, this year’s symposium was made possible by support from the Cato T. Laurencin Institute for Regenerative Engineering at UConn Health, the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, the Connecticut Department of Public Health Infrastructure Grant, the Connecticut Science Supervisors Association, the Connecticut Science Teachers Association, and the UConn Office of Undergraduate Admissions.
