American Junior Academy of Sciences (AJAS)
Scroll down to see the projects of our 2024 delegates.
To see prior AJAS fellows, visit our Washington State AJAS Delegates page.
The American Junior Academy of Science (AJAS) is the only national honor society recognizing America’s premier high school students for outstanding scientific research. The AJAS mission is to introduce, encourage, and accelerate pre-college students into the professional world of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Each state’s Academy of Science nominates high school students as AJAS delegates. The chosen delegates are then invited to attend the AJAS annual conference, which is held in conjunction with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting. During the conference, AJAS delegates tour local institutions of scientific importance, share their research with their peers and with other scientists, attend conference sessions, and are inducted as lifetime Fellows into the American Junior Academy of Science.
Each state’s Academy of Science determines the guidelines by which their AJAS delegates are chosen. In Washington, the WSAS K-12 Education Committee selects delegates after an application process that takes place each summer. WSAS invites eligible high school students, who have competed in state or regional science fairs and who have placed highly and/or have been selected to the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), to apply. WSAS sponsors delegates to attend the AJAS and AAAS meetings, covering all expenses including travel, registration, meals, and lodging. Each year, WSAS attempts to sponsor all qualified applicants.
Our AJAS delegates have been supported by community grants from The Boeing Company, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Vulcan, and Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories.
About AJAS
AJAS is a National Honor Society for students who have completed exemplar scientific research projects while attending high school. It the only honor society for pre-college research scientists. Each affiliated (city, state, or regional) Academy of Science nominates their top high school science researchers and these students are invited to our conference.
The AJAS conference gives students a chance to share their research and discuss science topics with the leading scientists of our time at the AJAS Breakfast with Scientists; and to present their research at poster, PowerPoint, and oral presentation sessions. AJAS is not a competition. The AJAS mission is to introduce, encourage and accelerate pre-college students into the social, cultural, intellectual, and professional world of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Our current AJAS Team is compromised of our Associate Program Manager, Tristan Fehr, with the support of our WSAS Education Committee.
WSAS’s 2024 delegates and their projects can be found below. To view student posters and or/ slide decks, click on the title of their project.
2024 Delegates

Alessandra Azure
Newport High School

Dhruv Darbha
Redmond High School

Priya Emani
Olympia High School
Identifying Possible Biological Processes Affected By Non-Target Proteins of SARS-CoV-2

Padmaja Senthil Kumar
Lewis and Clark High School
Structural Basis for the Allosteric Modulation of the GABAA Receptors by Diazepam

Zain Shariff
Curtis Junior High School
Microwave-Related Tissue Changes Using Ultrasound: Processing Images into Spectral Colors
Nikki Taleghani
Tesla STEM High School
Carbon Dot and Cyanoacrylate Fuming Method for Latent Fingerprint Detection
Kosha Upadhyay
Bellevue High School
Jerry Yao
Walla Walla High School
CamVisors: A Low-Cost Smart Glass System Utilizing Computer Vision for the Blind