Indian-Origin Girl Tops In 'Junior Nobel', Awarded $250,000

An Indian-American teenager, Indrani Das, has bagged the top prize at America’s oldest and the most prestigious science competitions in the world – the Regeneron Science Talent Search Competition. Popularly known as Junior Nobel Prize among scientists, this year the 17-year-old girl topped the competition and took home $250,000 in prize money.

Teen scientists compete for "junior Nobel Prize" https://t.co/yqRDbjrVfB

— David Papp (@DavidPapp) March 17, 2017

Additionally, a total of 40 top finalists (mostly students) were awarded more than $1.8 million. As many as five Indian-Americans were ranked in the top 10.

Indrani, who hails from New Jersey, participated in this high school science and math competition. Among the previous participants, as many 12 winners of the Regeneron contest have gone on to win actual Nobel Prizes.

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Indrani is an expert in the field of science and technology and her work was mainly focused on astrogliosis. She won the top place for her research in treating brain injuries and the abnormality caused by various diseases.

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Interestingly, Arjun Ramani, another Indian-American, emerged third and took away a prize of $150,000. He was researching on mathematical networking field using graph theory and computer programming. Similarly, the fifth place in the competition was also won by Indian-American Archana Verma for her project on solar power. She got an award of $90,000. Prathik Naidu stood seventh and Vrinda Madan got the ninth place.

George D Yancopoulos, president and the Chief Scientific Officer of Regeneron, in a statement to American Bazaar Online, said, “My experience as a Science Talent Search winner led me to embark on a career in science, and I hope it will inspire these exceptional young scientists to become the next generation of innovators that will improve the world and solve some of our most pressing challenges as a society.”

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Among the 40 finalists, there were eight Indian-origin students and they received prizes of $25,000 each.

The competition is very popular worldwide and more than 1,700 students take to the platform to showcase their talents each year.

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