St. Mark’s Students win top prizes at Mass Science & Engineering Fair

Above: St. Mark’s School’s top performers at MSEF. (Photo L-R of Jia Anand, Avery Leonard, and Sarah Mattson by Lindsey Lohwater)

St. Mark’s School is doing some well deserved bragging. Two students will be competing in an international science and engineering fair after earning two of the top three prizes at the state competition. One of them is a Southborough resident.

The private school’s press release explains:

Two St. Mark’s School VI Form (senior) students earned top prizes at the Massachusetts Science and Engineering Fair (MSEF) held at Gillette Stadium on April 5, 2024; they qualified as delegates from the state to compete at the 2024 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, the world’s largest pre-college STEM competition, which will take place from May 11 to May 17 in Los Angeles, at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The students, who are currently members of the St. Mark’s Taft STEM Fellowship, are:

JIA ANAND, Shrewsbury, Mass.; Sanofi Grand Prize Winner, First Place Overall Anand took home the Sanofi grand prize, earning first place and $10,000 for the highest scoring project overall at the MSEF entitled: Ginsenosides CK and RK’s Ef ect on High Intensity Social Behaviors of Aggression in a Tauopathy Model of Alzheimer’s Disease in Drosophila Melanogaster. “Exposing myself to the scientific research world at the pre-collegiate level, researching and reaching out to 50-plus professors, establishing connections with mentors, and learning lifelong skills of problem-solving, analysis and communication were all invaluable skills I took away and are unique to this experience,” said Anand. “There were a lot of unexpected ups and downs I had to navigate through due to things out of my control,” she added. “It was frustrating when things didn’t go as planned or when I had numerous questions that remained unanswered. I had to push myself to step out of my comfort zone to tackle these obstacles and continue moving forward, even if it was on a different path than I had originally planned.”

AVERY LEONARD, Southborough, Mass.; Alnylam Bioscience Excellence Award, Third Place Overall Leonard received the Alnylam Bioscience Excellence Award for the top Biology project along with a first-place award for the third-highest scoring project overall at the fair: The Influence of Ginger Root Extract on Female Reproductivity in Caenorhabditis elegans. “MSEF was such a cool experience for me because we were all surrounded by other high-schoolers who have similar passions, aspirations, and are interested in STEM,” Leonard said. “Even though we were all competing for individual awards, I loved that the environment felt collaborative and welcoming because everyone was so passionate about their project and eager to share their ideas and results.”

Over 350 students presented more than 280 projects at the MSEF. A total of eight St. Mark’s students in the Taft STEM Fellowship participated. Directed by St. Mark’s Biology teacher Lindsey Lohwater and Department Chair David Palmer, students in the Taft STEM Fellowship at St. Mark’s are chosen in the spring of the preceding year of the program and spend all summer conducting literature reviews of their topics, developing their research question, and beginning to speak with mentors. In the fall, fellows design the procedure for their experiment and execute this procedure; then they compete at the regional fair in March, and those who qualify are able to compete at the state fair.

In the eyes of science professionals who judge the fairs, the work these young scientists are conducting is top notch,” said Lohwater. “That is extremely validating for both the students and the Taft STEM Fellowship program.”

The full list of MSEF award recipients is here, and includes another St. Mark’s student. Sarah Mattson was among the Second Place award winners for her work on “Ashwagandha’s Effect on Locomotion in a C. elegans Model of Huntington’s Disease”.