Judges, from top left: Xianggui (Harvey) Qu, Karry Roberts, Jennie Jester, Tuba Suzer-Gurtekin, Frank Murdock, Ruth Cassidy, David Corliss, David Doane, Keshav Pokhrel, Hon Yiu (Henry) So, Bern DeBacker, Min Zhang, Alex Verros, and Jun Hu (Andrew Ekstrom not pictured)

Members of the Detroit and Ann Arbor chapters gave ASA professional awards at the Michigan Science and Engineering Fair March 16. This long-standing annual joint chapter event gives section members a chance to recognize high-school students at the state level of the science fair who incorporated statistical methods into their science projects. This year, the fair was held as a hybrid event, and the section members chose to do their judging online to give them more time to review the 73 projects, though they did miss the in-person interaction with the students and each other.

Judges from the Detroit Chapter included Xianggui (Harvey) Qu, Karry Roberts, David Corliss, David Doane, Keshav Pokhrel, Hon Yiu (Henry) So, Bern DeBacker, Alex Verros, Jun Hu, and Andrew Ekstrom. Jennie Jester, Tuba Suzer-Gurtekin, Frank Murdock, Ruth Cassidy, and Min Zhang were judges from the Ann Arbor Chapter.

The chapters gave one $200 Award of Excellence, six $50 merit awards, and 16 certificates of recognition. Here are the winners and information about their projects and schools.

ASA Professional Awards – Michigan Science & Engineering Fair

Award of Excellence ($200)

Students: Andrew Wagner and Olivia Wagner
Project Title: Hydrogen & Oxygen Production from a Dry Cell to Start a Sustainable Engine
School: Nouvel Catholic Central, Saginaw
Grade: 12
Teacher: Clare Wagner

Merit Awards ($50)

Students: Lauren Blasé and Faith Aloia
Project Title: The Effect of Knob Spacing on the Rolling Resistance of a Tire
School: Macomb Mathematics Science Technology Center, Warren
Grade: 12
Teacher: Jamie Hilliard

Student: Zhongsheng Cheng
Project Title: Deep Learning–Based Denoising of Super-Resolution Images of Protein Aggregates
School: Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School, Bloomfield Hills
Grade: 11
Teacher: Stephanie Kokoszka

Student: Devarshi Dalal
Project Title: Use of Artificial Intelligence for Obtaining Optimal Wrist X-Rays
School: Troy High School, Troy
Grade: 11
Teacher: Rebecca Brewer

Student: Sanjana Duttagupta
Project Title: User-Friendly Defective Solar Cell Detection Using Artificial Intelligence
School: Northville High School, Northville
Grade: 11
Teacher: Karin Nelson

Student: Thomas Ignaczak
Project Title: Filamentous Fungi and Heavy Metal Resistance
School: Stoney Creek High School, Rochester Hills
Grade: 11
Teacher: David Thomson

Student: Akshaj Sharma
Project Title: Turbulent Jet Flow to Induce Entrainment for Atmospheric Rocket Flight
School: International Academy – East Campus, Troy
Grade: 11
Teacher: Jackie Toepel

Certificates of Recognition

Students: Deshana Betala, Maia Lintner, and Kennedy Smucker
Project Title: Effects of Various Plant Extracts on the Viability of Prostate Cancer Cells
School: Kalamazoo Area Math & Science Center, Kalamazoo
Grade: 12
Teacher: Rebecca Joyce

Student: Charlie Chen
Project Title: Exoplanet Discovery
School: Detroit Country Day Upper, Beverly Hills
Grade: 12
Teacher: Patricia Hanlan

Student: Akshar Cowlagi
Project Title: Refining Radiative Transfer Models of Clouds via Analyses of Deep Networks
School: Huron High School, Ann Arbor
Grade: 11
Teacher: Andrew Collins

Student: Austin Feng
Project Title: Pattern of IRG1/Acod1 Expression in the Tumor Microenvironment
School: Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School, Bloomfield Hills
Grade: 12
Teacher: Stephanie Kokoszka

Student: Diya Gehlaut
Project Title: Effect of Alcohol on Fetal Brain mTOR System
School: International Academy – East Campus, Troy
Grade: 12
Teacher: Jackie Toepel

Student: Vikram Goddla
Project Title: Autonomous Navigation of Medical Microbots with Deep Reinforcement Learning
School: Detroit Country Day Upper, Beverly Hills
Grade: 11
Teacher: Patricia Hanlan

Students: Ashika Gullapalli and Fayyaz Razi
Project Title: Survey and DNA Barcoding of Invasive Plant Species in Southwest Michigan
School: Kalamazoo Area Math & Science Center, Kalamazoo
Grade: 12
Teacher: Rebecca Joyce

Student: Miriam Haddad
Project Title: Plant Probiotics: A New Paradigm for Plant Growth?
School: Saginaw Arts & Sciences, Saginaw
Grade: 10
Teacher: Matthew Miller

Student: Michelle Hua
Project Title: 3D Simulation and Optimization Algorithms of Transcranial Focused Ultrasound
School: Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School, Bloomfield Hills
Grade: 12
Teacher: Stephanie Kokoszka

Student: Connor Kalkanis
Project Title: Innovative Combination Therapy for Treating Brain Tumors
School: Detroit Country Day Upper, Beverly Hills
Grade: 11
Teacher: Lara McMillan

Student: Mounika Katta
Project Title: Vaginal Bacteria Associated with Clinical Outcomes of Bacterial Vaginosis
School: Northville High School, Northville
Grade: 11
Teacher: Karin Nelson

Student: Shubhan Nagarkar
Project Title: Maximizing Osteogenesis Through Optimization of Biodegradable Polymer Scaffold
School: Midland HH Dow High School, Midland
Grade: 12
Teacher: Diane White

Students: Samuel Penn and Holden Rembecki
Project Title: Don’t Let the Plastics Dissolve Away
School: Macomb Mathematics Science Technology Center, Warren
Grade: 12
Teacher: Jamie Hilliard

Students: Prakash Shekhar and Abdolla Hegazy
Project Title: Developing an Improved Parallel Gibbs Sampling Algorithm for DNA Motif Finding
School: Kalamazoo Area Math & Science Center, Kalamazoo
Grade: 11
Teacher: Rebecca Joyce

Student: Fuga Takahashi
Project Title: Machine Learning Prediction of Binding Affinity for In-Silico Drug Discovery
School: Novi Senior High School, Novi
Grade: 11
Teacher: James Didio

Students: Max Xiao, Om Joshi, and Manav Khosla
Project Title: SECRNN: Convolutional Recurrent Network for Spatial Audio Event Recognition
School: International Academy, Bloomfield Hills
Grade: 10
Teacher: Kristy Hessler