JSHS Returns in Full for 2026: U.S. High School Students Have Already Begun Preparing
Students at U.S. high schools often have more options than others when it comes to academic and extracurricular profile building. The key question is how to make the most of that advantage. One of the most valuable research competitions available specifically to U.S. high school students is the JSHS, the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium.
The JSHS has now officially announced its full return for the 2026 season, and many U.S. high school students have already entered preparation mode.
If you are not yet familiar with this highly respected but still relatively under-the-radar competition, this guide will walk you through the essentials.
JSHS Competition Overview
JSHS is sponsored by the United States Army, Navy, and Air Force. It is open to students in Grades 9 to 12 across the United States and encourages them to carry out original research and experimentation. Each year, nearly 20,000 high school students participate in state and regional competitions in an effort to qualify for the national finals.
JSHS covers eight major subject areas. At the national level, judging is based on both posters and oral presentations, and first, second, and third prizes are awarded in each subject. The scholarship awards are also substantial.
2025 JSHS Poster Award Winners
| Subject | Award | Student | School |
|---|---|---|---|
| Environmental Science | First Prize | D.C. | Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology |
| Environmental Science | Second Prize | DoDEA Europe | Kaiserslautern High School |
| Environmental Science | Third Prize | Jordan Chong | Intermountain, Davidson Academy |
| Biomedical Sciences | First Prize | Hamsini Ramanathan | Washington, Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences (SAAS) |
| Biomedical Sciences | Second Prize | Navneeth Badhri | Washington, Redmond High School |
| Biomedical Sciences | Third Prize | Pavan Subramani | West Virginia, Morgantown High School |
| Life and Behavioral Sciences | First Prize | Hailey Kim | Virtual, Marriotts Ridge High School |
| Life and Behavioral Sciences | Second Prize | Norah Ahmed | Indiana, Evansville Day School |
| Life and Behavioral Sciences | Third Prize | Riya Raina | New York-Upstate, Briarcliff High School |
| Medicine and Health | First Prize | Roshan Amurthur | California Northern, The Harker School |
| Medicine and Health | Second Prize | Rebecca Jacob | Ohio, Solon High School |
| Medicine and Health | Third Prize | Miyeong Berran | DoDEA Pacific, Humphreys High School |
| Engineering and Technology | First Prize | Anusha Agarwal | Greater Washington |
| Engineering and Technology | Second Prize | Jessie Brenay | DoDEA Europe, Kaiserslautern High School |
| Engineering and Technology | Third Prize | Alexandra Sigmond | North Central, Breck School |
| Mathematics and Computer Science | First Prize | Henry Zou | Heartland, Johnston Senior High School |
| Mathematics and Computer Science | Second Prize | Sebastian Lashmet | New York-Upstate, Byram Hills High School |
| Mathematics and Computer Science | Third Prize | — | New York-Upstate, Briarcliff High School |
| Physical Sciences | First Prize | Aditya Sengupta | Washington, The Overlake School |
| Physical Sciences | Second Prize | Max Berg | South Carolina, Spring Valley High School |
| Physical Sciences | Third Prize | Daniela Méndez Cora | Puerto Rico, Escuela Especializada en Ciencias y Matemáticas Genaro Cautiño |
| Chemistry | First Prize | — | Washington, Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences (SAAS) |
| Chemistry | Second Prize | Caleb Rowe | Heartland, Central City High School |
| Chemistry | Third Prize | Michelle Diep | Georgia, Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology |
2025 JSHS Oral Presentation Award Winners
| Subject | Award | Student | School | Project |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Environmental Science | First Prize | Matthew Lo | Philadelphia and Delaware, The Haverford School | BeeMind AI: Development of an Artificial Intelligence-Based System to Assess Honeybee Health, Behavior, and Nutrient Effects |
| Environmental Science | Second Prize | Anna Tringale | North Carolina, North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics | Investigating the Influence of Coal Ash Heavy Metal Leachate on Thyroid Hormone Concentration, Hormone Receptor Gene Expression, and Spectral Sensitivity in Danio rerio |
| Environmental Science | Third Prize | Lakshmi Agrawal | Washington, Interlake High School and Stanford Online High School | A Novel Method of Water Purification: Optimizing Foam Fractionation for Effective Broad-Spectrum Removal of DBP and DBP Precursors in Chlorinated Drinking Water |
| Biomedical Sciences | First Prize | Siri Peddinti | Texas, Plano East Senior High School | Vocalyze: A Deep Learning Approach to Detecting Major Depressive Disorder and Tracking Treatment Efficacy via Vocal Acoustic Inflections and Sentiment Analysis |
| Biomedical Sciences | Second Prize | Aaron Weinberg | New York-Upstate, The Masters School | Characterizing the RyR2-Mediated Cardiac Pathophysiology of COVID-19 in Rodent Models |
| Biomedical Sciences | Third Prize | Maya Hammoud | Michigan, Detroit Country Day School | Decoding ASXL3: A Novel Biomarker and Treatment for Neurodevelopmental Disorders |
| Life and Behavioral Sciences | First Prize | Selena Qiao | North Central, Breck School | Turf Trouble: Does the DEET in Bug Repellent Really Kill Grass? Year II |
| Life and Behavioral Sciences | Second Prize | Siddharth Sridharan | Arkansas, Little Rock Central High School | The Neurobiology of Voluntary Exercise: A Novel Approach to Alleviate Chemobrain by Promoting Hippocampal Neurogenesis |
| Life and Behavioral Sciences | Third Prize | Vinil Polepalli | New Jersey Southern, High Technology High School | Effects of Epigallocatechin Gallate and Piperine Compounds on the Regeneration of D. tigrina |
| Medicine and Health | First Prize | Sritej Padmanabhan | Pennsylvania, North Allegheny Senior High School | ParkinSense: A Telehealth Toolkit for Quantitative Analysis of Motor Symptoms in Parkinson’s Disease |
| Medicine and Health | Second Prize | Aakash Bhattacharyya | Arkansas, Central High School | Early Detection of Critical Salmonella Cases for Pre-Emptive Treatment via Novel Biomarkers Discovered through Protein Domain Analysis and Machine Learning |
| Medicine and Health | Third Prize | Diya Shah | Texas, Plano East Senior High School | The Salt to My Pepper: Utilizing the Bioactive Descriptors of Piperoyl Piperidine on Drosophila melanogaster as a Neoteric Treatment for Breast Cancer |
| Engineering and Technology | First Prize | Sean Skinner | New York-Long Island, Ward Melville High School | Physics-Informed Machine Learning for Many-Objective Generative Design |
| Engineering and Technology | Second Prize | Cooper Taylor | Connecticut, Greenwich Country Day School | Next-Generation VTOL Drones: A Breakthrough in Tilt Mechanism and Modular Design for Optimization and Accessibility |
| Engineering and Technology | Third Prize | Maya Trutschl | Louisiana, Caddo Magnet High School | Mitigation of Pressure Injuries: Inertial Wearable and Computer Vision Approaches |
| Mathematics and Computer Science | First Prize | Eric Buehler | New England Northern, Home School | AI on Edge: Novel Post-Training Quantization for Education Applications |
| Mathematics and Computer Science | Second Prize | Max Lee | Georgia, Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology | Multi-Branch Temporal-Spectral LSTM-CNN in Deepfake Audio Detection |
| Mathematics and Computer Science | Third Prize | Brandon Bonamarte | Tennessee, Oak Ridge High School | Identifying Key Factors to Improve Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis with Machine Learning |
| Physical Sciences | First Prize | Aiden Kwon | California Southern, Palos Verdes Peninsula High School | Revolutionizing Turbulence Studies: Novel Low-Cost Zero Mean-Flow Chamber Design and Physics-Informed Tensor Basis Neural Network |
| Physical Sciences | Second Prize | Padmalakshmi Ramesh | Wyoming and Colorado, Laramie High School | A Novel Method to Analyze Thermonuclear Explosions in Four Binary Star Systems Using NASA’s High Time Resolution TESS Data |
| Physical Sciences | Third Prize | Marcus King | Illinois, Governor French Academy | Water World Exoplanet Atmospheric and Spectral Data Analysis via Thermodynamic Modeling and Unsupervised Machine Learning |
| Chemistry | First Prize | — | Georgia, South Forsyth High School | Multi-Color Magneto-Fluorescent Nanoarchitectures for the Targeted Identification of Exosomes of Triple Negative Breast Cancer |
| Chemistry | Second Prize | Aarush Tutiki | Southwest, Albuquerque Academy | Development of Highly Biofunctional Nanotherapeutics for Healthy and Cancerous Applications |
| Chemistry | Third Prize | Avani Kaur | Virginia, Mills E. Godwin High School | Combating Alzheimer’s Disease: Design and Synthesis of a Novel Drug Molecule for Targeted Metal Chelation Therapy |
1. Eligibility
A student may compete in only one regional symposium, and that region is determined by the location of the student’s school or organization.
Participants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
Team submissions are accepted. The team leader is normally the presenter. The presentation must clearly reflect the division of work among all members, and the contributions of all team members, including students and teachers, must be properly acknowledged.
2. Subject Areas
Major Subject Categories
Environmental Science, Biomedical Sciences, Cell and Molecular Biology, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health and Behavioral Sciences, Engineering and Technology, Mathematics and Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Physics, and Chemistry
Detailed Subject Areas
Environmental Science
Environmental science and environmental engineering, bioremediation, ecosystem management, environmental engineering, land resource management, pollution, toxicity, and impacts on ecosystems
Biomedical Sciences, Cell and Molecular Biology
Biomedical science, microbiology, molecular and cellular biology, genetics, immunology, pharmacology, and virology
Life Sciences
Developmental biology, plant physiology, population genetics, general biochemistry, and microbiology
Medicine and Health and Behavioral Sciences
Behavioral science, biochemistry, bioengineering, disease diagnosis and treatment, epidemiology, immunology, neuroscience, physiology, and pathology
Engineering and Technology
Aerospace, aerodynamics, electrical engineering, energy and solar power, vehicle development, devices, mechanical engineering, and robotics
Mathematics and Computer Science, Computer Engineering
Probability and statistics, mathematics, computer science including algorithms, databases, and networks, and computer engineering
Physics
Astronomy, theoretical physics, solid-state physics, acoustics, optics, thermodynamics, particle physics, quantum physics, nuclear science, and the Internet of Things, including embedded electronics, software, sensors, and network-connected physical objects
Chemistry
Physical chemistry, materials, alternative fuels, organic chemistry in life sciences, chemical engineering, geochemistry, energy and alternative fuels, and materials science
3. Competition Timeline
| Time | Stage | Content |
|---|---|---|
| September to December | Regional Competition | Submit application materials and compete for regional awards and national qualification |
| January to March of the following year | Regional Symposia | Regional symposia and discussions are held |
| April to May of the following year | National Competition | National awards and scholarships are determined |
4. Submission Requirements
Research paper
Abstract
Poster
Timed oral presentation, including a 12-minute presentation and a 6-minute question period
Statement on Outside Assistance
5. Awards
| Award Level | Description |
|---|---|
| Regional Awards | Each region selects first, second, and third place winners, with a total of 4,500 US dollars in scholarships awarded |
| National Awards | Across the eight subject areas, scholarships totaling 192,000 US dollars are awarded to the top three finalists in each discipline |
| National Poster Awards | Posters are also judged at the national competition, and the top three posters in each discipline receive significant scholarships |
JSHS gives STEM-focused students an early opportunity to engage in genuine research. Participating in a research competition can also demonstrate academic interest and research potential. This kind of experience can make a strong impression on admissions officers and become a highly valuable part of a student’s application profile.
