The 75th International Science and Engineering Fair, the world's largest and most prestigious science competition, concluded with the Grand Awards ceremony in host city Columbus, Ohio. Over 30 million high school students from 1,600 affiliated fairs in 70 countries competed to qualify, of which only 1,700 students made it, including 10 from the Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair, led by GSDSEF Board Member, Treasurer and Judging Captain, Sany Zakharia. These finalists competed for $9m in awards, with the GSDSEF delegation winning a total of 7 awards, including 2nd place, 3rd place and two 4th places, for a total of $46,800.

Detailed results below:

Behavioral and Social Sciences:
Hannah Im & Nupur Bhalla, Grade 11, Del Norte High School, "Optimizing Academic Burnout Mitigation: Statistical Modeling of Emotional Intelligence as a Protective Factor in Adolescents"
- ISEF Finalist

Biomedical and Health Sciences:
Saanvi Dogra, Grade 11, Del Norte High School, "Uncovering Molecular Mechanisms for Treatment of Congenital Heart Defects through High-Content Genetic Perturbation Screens"
- Grand Award: Fourth Award of $600

Anirudh Kalyanaraman, Grade 12, Mt. Carmel High School, "A Novel Treatment Approach to Mitigate Adverse Cardiovascular Effects of Burn Pit Exposure”
- ISEF Finalist

Lilian Zeng, Grade 11, Del Norte High School, "Identifying Bacteriophages, Nature's Own Secret Weapon Against Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria, for Achromobacter Treatment”
- ISEF Finalist

Biomedical Engineering:
Kayley Xu, Grade 10, The Bishop's School, “Wearable Stethoscope Array for Cardiopulmonary Sound Localization and Interference Suppression Using Beamforming”.
- Grand Award: Second Award of $2,400
- Special Award: Society for Science Alumni Award of $5k

Computational Biology and Bioinformatics:
Tarik Oguz, Grade 11, Del Norte High School, "Small Changes, Big Impact: miRNAs in Lung Cancer Detection"
- Grand Award: Fourth Award of $600

Physics and Astronomy:
Joe Smith, Grade 12, Stanford Online High School, “Lost in the Stars: Chemical Tagging of the Magellanic Clouds and Accreted Populations”
- Grand Award: Third Award of $1,200

Plant Sciences:
Anna Luo, Grade 11, Canyon Crest Academy, "Allelopathic Effects of Cynara cardunculus on Native Coastal Sage Scrub Species"
- Special Award: The New American University ISEF Scholarship of $32k

Robotics and Intelligent Machines:
Ryan Rezaei, Grade 11, Canyon Crest Academy, “Symmetry-Preserving Variational Autoencoder and Latent Space Rectified Flow Diffusion for Accelerated Materials Discovery With Geometric Graph Neural Networks and Integrated Property Network Multi-Layer Perceptron"
- Special Award: Midjourney of $5K

We are extremely proud of all our ISEF finalists, congratulations!

Read our press release.

The 74th California Science and Engineering Fair brought together 900 of the best of 1st place winners from regional competitions across 58 counties, including the GSDSEF. Our students won 42 awards at the event, including one of just two highly coveted spots to the prestigious Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). Ten students earned 1st Place awards in their categories and one student recieved a Kindeva Innovative Award for excellence in science and engineering. CSEF is the oldest science fair west of the Mississippi River and the highest level competition in the state.

Read our press release.
Full results and project showcase.

Congratulations to all our students!

The 71st Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair was held this year at the Balboa Park Activity Center, on Wednesday, March 12th. The awards ceremony was held on Thursday, March 13th at The Observatory North Park, with Ms. Vanitha Kumar, SVP at Qualcomm, as our keynote speaker. $40k in prizes were awarded, with top students winning their way to the California Science and Engineering Fair and 8 Grand Award winners qualifying for the prestigious International Science and Engineering Fair. Additionally, a special award was presented for the first time to Ms. Karen Podvin in recognition of her 50 years of judging at the GSDSEF. Congratulations to all the students and to Ms. Podvin!

Read our press release.
For results, click here.
For Project Showcase, click here.

ISEF Press Release
CSEF Press Release
GSDSEF Press Release

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About the GSDSEF

Since 1955, the Greater San Diego Science And Engineering Fair (GSDSEF) has provided an inspiring experience in science and engineering for tens of thousands of San Diego and Imperial County students, motivating them to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This regional competition challenges students to go beyond classroom studies to do independent research – to ask compelling questions, to design and implement innovative solutions, and to present and defend results to judges who are professionals in their fields.

The GSDSEF brings together 800 of the best middle and high school students, 400+ judges who are professionals in their fields and over 60 professional societies and organizations, with $40k in prizes awarded. The GSDSEF is the highest-level STEM competition in the region and one of the oldest, most respected and competitive in the world.

Beyond the fair, the GSDSEF operates year round and has mentored teachers and students and helped to develop science fair programs in schools across the county. For over 70 years, the GSDSEF has been cultivating and nurturing San Diego’s future STEM workforce. The GSDSEF is a 501(c)(3) run entirely by unpaid volunteers. Our work is made possible through donations from supporters like you.

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The Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair proudly recognizes the numerous generous sponsors who make the Fair possible each year!