Plano ISD students competed in the annual Texas Junior Academy of Science (TJAS) competition held October 8-9\u00a0in College Station, Texas. High school students (grades 9-12) from across the state conducted research during the school year and presented results at TJAS through both spoken and written word.<\/p>\n
45 Plano ISD students were accepted to present at the 2026 TJAS competition. Of the 10 first-place category awards that advanced to the second round of competition to determine grand prize winners, four were Plano ISD students. Plano ISD captured both first grand prize awards in\u00a0both Physical Science & Engineering and Natural Sciences! Additionally, Plano students also captured the 3rd grand prize in Natural Science. All first place category winners have been invited to attend the American Junior Academy of Science (AJAS) Conference held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), where they will interact with other students from the United States, as well as present their research to prominent scientists in the field through both oral and poster presentations. The 2027 AJAS\/AAAS Conference will take place on February 17-20, 2027, in Chicago, Illinois.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Grand Prize Awards<\/p>\n
\tNatural Science Division<\/p>\n
\t\tShaarda Krishna, Plano West Senior High School, 11th grade, Medicine & Health\/Behavioral & Social Sciences I – first grand prize, Targeting Post Transplant Organ Rejection Through a Computational Approach Correlating CYP3A5 Enzyme and Biomarker Visible Genome Expression
\n\t\tVijay Shivnani, Plano West Senior High School, 12th grade, Life Sciences II – third grand prize, Captivity Drives Interspecies Taxonomic Convergence of Vertebrate Gut Microbiomes while Preserving Most Core Metabolic Functions<\/p>\n
\tPhysical Science & Engineering Division<\/p>\n
\t\tAna Spiride, Plano East Senior High School, 12th grade, engineering I – 1st grand prize, HandTalk Wearable: A Portable Translation System for American Sign Language<\/p>\n
First Place Category Awards<\/p>\n
All first place category winners are invited to present their research at the American Junior Academy of Science Conference in February 2027.<\/p>\n
\tSyed Husain, Plano West Senior High School, 12th grade, Computer Science\/Mathematics I, Lifeline AI
\n\tVijay Shivnani, Plano West Senior High School, 12th grade, life sciences II, Captivity Drives Interspecies Taxonomic Convergence of Vertebrate Gut Microbiomes while Preserving Most Core Metabolic Functions
\n\tAna Spiride, Plano East Senior High School, 12th grade, engineering I, HandTalk Wearable: A Portable Translation System for American Sign Language
\n\tShaarda Krishna, Plano West Senior High School, 11th grade, Medicine & Health\/Behavioral & Social Sciences I – first grand prize, Targeting Post Transplant Organ Rejection Through a Computational Approach Correlating CYP3A5 Enzyme and Biomarker Visible Genome Expression<\/p>\n
Second Place Category Awards<\/p>\n
\tIshaan Nirmal, Plano West Senior High School, 12th grade, Computer Science\/Mathematics I
\n\tSanjit Konda, Plano Senior High School, 12th grade, Computer Science\/Mathematics I
\n\tGoutham Ronanki, Plano West Senior High School, 12th grade, Computer Science\/Mathematics II
\n\tAarav Rao, Plano Senior High School, 11th grade, Engineering I
\n\tRajveer Savla, Jasper High School, 10th grade, Engineering I
\n\tMosami Mansingka, Plano West Senior High School, 11th grade, Environmental Science
\n\tViolet Whittenburg, Plano West Senior High School, 11th grade, Environmental Science
\n\tAmaan Kuniyil, Plano East Senior High School, 12th grade, Life Sciences I
\n\tAndrew Lee, Plano West Senior High School, 12th grade, Life Sciences II
\n\tChloe Ni, Jasper High School, 10th grade, Life Sciences II
\n\tJason Pi, Jasper High School, 10th grade, Life Sciences II
\n\tNeil Narvenkar, Plano West Senior High School, 12th grade, Life Sciences II
\n\tIshaan Khera, Plano West Senior High School, 12th grade, Medicine & Health\/Behavioral & Social Sciences I
\n\tNidhi Ajmera, Plano East Senior High School, 11th grade, Medicine & Health\/Behavioral & Social Sciences II
\n\tAkansh Karthik, Plano West Senior High School, 11th grade, Physical Sciences
\n\tJessica Zhang, Plano West Senior High School, 12th grade, Physical Sciences<\/p>\n
Third Place Category Awards<\/p>\n
\tAarnav Lanka, Plano Senior High School, 11th grade, Computer Science\/Mathematics I
\n\tManu Sriram, Plano West Senior High School, 11th grade, Computer Science\/Mathematics II
\n\tIshveer Randhawa, Plano East Senior High School, 12th grade, Engineering I
\n\tAditi Srivastava, Plano West Senior High School, 12th grade, Engineering II
\n\tAnurag Bhaskar, Plano West Senior High School, 12th grade, Engineering II
\n\tMatthew Kuo, Jasper High School, 10th grade, Environmental Science
\n\tIshita Vats, Plano East Senior High School, 12th grade, Life Sciences I
\n\tArush Sunil, Jasper High School, 10th grade, Life Sciences II
\n\tRaman Chakravarty, Plano West Senior High School, 11th grade, Life Sciences II
\n\tVaisshnavi Sri Navaneethakrishnan, Plano East Senior High School, 12th grade, Medicine & Health\/Behavioral & Social Sciences II
\n\tAdhiti Murthy, Plano West Senior High School, 11th grade, Physical Sciences<\/p>\n
Honorable Mentions<\/p>\n
\tSahil Mehta, Plano East Senior High School, 12th grade, Computer Science\/Mathematics II
\n\tSashwath Selvakumar, Jasper High School, 9th grade, Computer Science\/Mathematics II
\n\tSaket Shant, Plano East Senior High School, 12th grade, Engineering I
\n\tAaron Castro, Plano West\u00a0 Senior High School, 11th grade, Engineering II
\n\tMariia Teterina, Plano West\u00a0 Senior High School, 12th grade, Engineering II
\n\tArtina Belivan, Plano West Senior High School, 12th grade, Environmental Science
\n\tSuchit Choudhary, Jasper High School, 10th grade, Environmental Science
\n\tArnuv Modh, Plano Senior High School, 12th grade, Life Sciences I
\n\tDorina Etemad, Plano West\u00a0 Senior High School, 11th grade, Life Sciences II
\n\tRuby Chen, Jasper High School, 10th grade, Life Sciences II
\n\tSean Kim, Plano West Senior High School, 12th\u00a0grade, Medicine & Health\/Behavioral & Social Sciences I
\n\tMitra Amin, IB World School at Plano East, 10th grade, Physical Sciences
\n\tMahavir Soppannavar, Plano West\u00a0 Senior High School, 12th grade, Physical Sciences<\/p>\n
*This list includes students who have a publication consent and release form on file with the district.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plano ISD students competed in the annual Texas Junior Academy of Science (TJAS) competition held October 8-9\u00a0in College…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,2610,161,2609],"class_list":["post-480534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-independent-school-district","tag-plano-news","tag-posts-details-default-board-post-page"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}