Blazers win top awards at the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium

Blair students swept the awards at the Greater Washington Metropolitan Area Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS) held Jan. 4 and 5 at Georgetown University.

Seniors Victoria Yao, Jordy Wolfand and Wenjia Zhu placed first, second and third respectively at the science competition component of this two-day conference for high school students. Yao received a $2,000 scholarship, Wolfand $1,500 and Zhu $1,000 for their achievements.

As the top two finishers, Yao and Wolfand will represent the Greater Washington region at the National JSHS held May 2-6 in Huntsville, Alabama, where they will compete for additional scholarships with the other 238 finalists from the 48 regions around the country. The six first place winners at the national JSHS will compete at the International JSHS held in London.

The three Blair students were among the five finalists selected to present their research at the convention. All finalists were chosen from a pool of research papers submitted by high school students in the Metropolitan region.

The JSHS conference is held every year to promote interest in science among high school students. Students who submit research, or are nominated by their school to attend, are invited to particpate in this conference, which includes the student presentations, tours of laboratories, lectures and seminars.

Yao, whose paper was entitled "The Identification of Chromatin Domains Interacting with Hox Gene Clusters by a Novel Genome-wide Approach," was also a regional finalist in the Siemens Westinghouse science competition.