Rockwood Students Advance, Earn Awards at Honors Division Science Fair

(photos courtesy of the Academy of Science-St. Louis)

Marquette High junior Satvik Seetharaman earned second place, and fellow Marquette students Dhruv Bhosekar and Vihaan Sawardekar were among seven others to be named finalists at the 2025 Academy of Science-St. Louis Honors Division Science Fair.

A total of 10 students from six area schools qualified as finalists for the fair and presented posters of their projects for judges Feb. 22 at the College of Science and Health on the Webster University campus.

Seetharaman earned a $2,000 scholarship for his second-place project -- "Effectiveness of Heterogeneous COVID-19 Policies: County-Level Analyses Using Mathematical Epidemiology Models" -- and will be recognized at he Academy's Outstanding St. Louis Scientists Awards Dinner in April. He also qualified to compete for the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair in Columbus, Ohio, in May.

As finalists, Bhosekar and Sawardekar both earned $500 University of Missouri System MOST College Scholarships. Bhosekar's project is titled "Analyzing Functional Connectivity Patterns in Pre-Ictal and Interictal States of Epilepsy: A Mathematical Approach," and Sawardekar's is "Genomics-Phenomics Integration for Optimized Maize Breeding."

In addition, the Lafayette High team of Avyukth Raghuraman and Arpitha Sureshkumar was among 20 named semifinalists in the fair for their project "The Efficacy of Lactobacillus-Based Mitigation on Antibacterial Resistance in Capsicum Annuum." All Honors Division finalists and semifinalists are automatically entered as top projects in The Academy of Science-St. Louis regional K-12 Science Fair in April and are eligible for special awards and scholarships.

Congratulations to these outstanding Rockwood student scientists!