Michael Ma Leads WHRHS Students' Honors at State's Toughest Science Fair

Facing tough competition from magnet and specialized schools, Watchung Hills Regional students fared well with the 16 projects entered into last week's North Jersey Regional Science Fair at Rutgers.

Local students claimed some of the top prizes, including Michael Ma's first place award in the Physics and Physical Science category; Zach Collins and Seneca Villing's first place award in the D&B independent student research; Katherine Dong's first place in Environemental Science; and Diane Liao's first place in mathematics and computer science. Also, Jasmin Lo and Manaswini Rajaram received the Stockholm Junior Water Prize.

Other students honored at the March 17 fair included a Special computing award, second place, for Kush Murkerjee and Logan Mendez; second place in physics and earth science award to Matthew Carbone; honorable mention in chemistry, and a second place in the American Chemical Society Award for Kevin Chen and Ajay Kashi; and a material science award and third place in chemistry award for a project by Rohit Biswas and Audrey Luo.

A project by Kevin Lee and Leon Santhakumar received several awards, including third place in the Statistic category, third place in the Special Computing Award, a Meteorological award, and third place in physics and Earth science.

And a project by Manaswini Rajaram and Jasmin Lo was awarded the David S. Young Memorial Award, the U.S. Air Force Award, the Stockholm Junior Water Prize, and second place honors in the engineering category.

Michael Ma was named the Intel International Science Fair Finalist for his project, which was also named the ISEF Symposium Finalist, and recieved the Scientific American Award, and the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Education.

"The kind of work—an high-level work—being done here is just amazing," Superintendent Frances Stromsland said, after announcing the students' awards at Monday's Board of Education meeting.

Images of the fair are available in a photo feature on the MyCentralJersey website.