Sahana Paruchuri ’30 and Zoheb Barrantes ’31 have been named Top 300 Junior Innovators in the 2026 Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge (JIC), the nation’s premier STEM research competition for middle school students. Nearly 60,000 students nationwide participate in affiliated science fairs each year, and only 300 students were selected for this honor from almost 2,000 nominees.
Zoheb’s project, work he did as a seventh grader, is titled The Impact of Diurnal Warming on King Oyster Mushroom Growth.
Sahana’s work, conducted as an eighth grader, is called Beyond Accuracy: Brain Tumor AI—A Confidence-Calibrated Multi-Stage CNN for MRI Tumor Detection, Subtype Classification and Glioma Grading.
JIC is the nation’s premier STEM research competition for middle school students, reaching approximately 60,000 students nationwide through affiliated science fairs each year. Students placing in the top 10% are eligible for nomination, and this year, 1,997 nominees completed applications, with 300 selected as Junior Innovators.
