Photo: Maria G. Montiel-Jaen, PhD
A Shrewsbury High School sophomore outlasted 41 other area high school students in this year’s Brain Bee competition at UMass Chan Medical School.
The 19th annual Central Massachusetts Brain Bee was held Saturday, March 29, in the Paul J. DiMare Center at UMass Chan.
The 2025 champion, Shamini Biju, stood alone among the 10 finalists after 15 rounds of questions during the competition’s oral elimination rounds. Biju, who received the Andrew Sheridan Young Neuroscientist Award, qualified to compete in the 2025 USA National Brain Bee next month at the Rutgers University Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey.
Photo: David Weaver, PhD
Biju was joined in the top three finishers by fellow Shrewsbury High students Aadith Maganti (second place) and Parnitha Karapakula (third place). Caroline Charland of TEC Connections Academy and Charlee Miller of Grafton High School tied for fourth place. Fengdi Deng of Cushing Academy and Aneesha Pathangay of Hopkinton High School tied for sixth place. Shukkla Vaagmi of Hopkinton High School, Sanjit Pasala of Grafton High School, and Machika Macharla of Westborough High rounded out the top 10.
Rachael Sirianni, PhD, professor of neurological surgery, presented the keynote address, “Engineering in Medicine: Taking Research Ideas from Bench to Bedside and Back Again.”
Sheldon Benjamin, MD, professor of psychiatry & behavioral sciences, served as master of ceremonies. David Weaver, PhD, professor of neurobiology, director of the graduate program in neuroscience and executive director of the NeuroNexus Institute, organized the competition.
The event also included presentations from Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences students Megan Fowler-Magaw, Timmy Le and Jonathan Jung.
