ASA representative Cora Neal, left, from Weber State University and first-place winner Angela Chen of Durham, North Carolina, stand together on the 2022 ISEF stage in Atlanta, Georgia. Chen won for her Earth environmental sciences project.

The 2022 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair was held virtually April 29 – May 9 and in person May 9–13 in Atlanta, Georgia. ISEF is the world’s largest scientific competition, with millions of high-school students around the world competing for one of approximately 1,400 spots. These spots are awarded to students who have advanced from local and regional fairs based on the quality of their projects.

All students had virtual “booths” with online displays including a quad chart summary and a 12-slide PowerPoint presentation, while in-person students also had traditional project boards on display in Atlanta.

More than 50 statisticians from ASA chapters and sections volunteered their time to judge 1,409 science projects competing for the ASA Special Award in Statistics. Three projects were selected from Round 3 based on the best use of statistical thinking.

And the Winners Are …

Angela Chen

The first-place award of $1,500 went to Angela Chen of Durham, North Carolina, for her Earth and environmental sciences project using wavelet analysis and random forests to identify the key climate variables predicting the timing and location of future California wildfires.

Zara Hommez

The second-place award of $1,000 went to Zara Hommez of Irvine, California, for her computational biology and bioinformatics project using Cox regression and machine learning to identify key comorbidities and demographic variables associated with early death from COVID-19 in Brazil.

Rushank Goyal

The third-place award of $500 went to Rushank Goyal of Gwalior, India, for his translational medical science project using quantum machine learning and transcriptome profiles to identify biomarkers for 10 cancers.

In addition to cash prizes, each winner and six honorable mentions received a free one-year student membership in the ASA.

During the ceremony, ASA representative Cora Neal from Weber State University delivered a one-hour symposium, “Best Practices for Incorporating Charts and Statistics in Your Project.” Neal also presented the award to Chen. The second- and third-place winners participated virtually.

As is tradition, Harold Dyck—along with Christina Mehta of Atlanta and Yoonsung Jung of Houston—delivered 54 statistics and data science textbooks to the ISEF students. Volunteers from the Southern California Chapter will package and mail the books to the students who participated virtually.

The ASA also sponsored a dinner for the statistics judges. Those attending the celebration included Georgia Chapter judges Christina Mehta, Melinda Higgins, and Rob Krafty; Southern California Chapter judge Harold Dyck; and Houston Chapter judge Yoonsung Jung.