BT Young Scientist: Category Award winners

2023 BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition

Students in the audience of the 2023 BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition. Photograph: Alan Betson
Students in the audience of the 2023 BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition. Photograph: Alan Betson

Biological & Ecological

Junior

Group: 1 Martha Feely, Lileth Carrick, An investigation into the public’s perceptions and fears of Avian Influenza, St Joseph’s Secondary School; 2 Leah Winters, Lilly Daly, Millie O’Donovan, Bio Enzymes: A Cooler Way to Wash, Moate Community School; 3 Kerry Sun, Terry Heffernan, Domhnall Molloy, Garden Greening: Designing a Biodiversity Pillar to Remedy the Problems of Modern Gardening, Moate Community School.

Individual: 1 Elma Pallone, Consuming Fish: The Carbon Footprint of Trawling, Kinsale Community School; 2 Lochlan Gulliver, Automatic Self Watering Plant Pot, Blackrock College; 3 Ellen Brosnan, Do we really look like our parents? Investigating whether we can really tell parent and child apart using only facial features, Mount Anville Secondary School.

Intermediate

Group: 1 Tomás Markey, Leah Lordan, Clodagh O Sullivan, Human Neuro-Storage – A Contribution To Biological Memory And Learning, St Brogan’s College, Bandon; 2 Áine Shortall, Kate Whyte, A Sweeter Way to Treat Equine Parasites, Moate Community School; 2 Eve O’Driscoll, Susannah Guerin, An investigation into the effectiveness of constructed farmland sediment ponds in promoting biodiversity as indicated by the presence of water beetles as bioindicators, Colaiste Treasa.

Individual: 1 Alisha Manoj, Which compostable bin liner is the best to home compost? St Andrew’s College; 2 Ruth Fair, Investigation of the antimicrobial activity of Ilex aquifolium (common Holly tree), Bandon Grammar School; 3 April O’Donnell, Is the Clumping Behaviour of Mussels (Mytilus edulis) affected by the Presence of a Predator? Mary Immaculate Secondary School.

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Senior

Group: 1 Juliette Kelleher, Aoife Lynn, Honor Lynch, The Einstein of Enzymes: A Battle Against Plastic Pollution, Loreto College; 2 Ciara Gilmore, Beth Doherty, Reactivation of the Epstein Barr Virus (Glandular Fever); is there a connection between the reoccurrence of it and Post-Acute Covid-19? – A Statistical Analysis, Carndonagh Community School; 2 Conall Mullins, TJ McDonnell, Investigating the Immunosurveillant properties of erythrocyte-bound toll-like receptors, Colaiste Rís.

Individual: 1 Sean Allen, The long-term effects of a more sustainable method of keeping nutrients in the soil as an alternative to an artificially made granule, Roscommon Community College; 2 Cara Colvin, Cigarette smoke causes scarring of the lungs – how? South Eastern Regional College, Lisburn; 3 Ellie Fleming Hand, Parasites in domesticated horses, Bandon Grammar School.

Tipperary students win 2023 BT Young Scientist competitionOpens in new window ]

Chemical, Physical & Mathematical Sciences

Junior

Group: 1 Katie Mae O Neill, Anna O’Brien, Aimee Renton, An investigation into atmospheric microplastic contamination in both indoor and outdoor environments in the North Cork area of Mallow and potential health risks for humans, St Mary’s Secondary School Mallow; 2 Chloe Ní Chonghaile, Mairtin O Conghaile, Amy Ní Chlèirigh, Cumhacht na dtonn ar Inis Meáin- An féidir le fórsa nach féidir a stopadh rud dochorraithe a bhogadh, Coláiste Naomh Eoin; 3 Darcy Mc Granaghan, Rose Gaffey, Ava Molloy, Quantitative Water Analysis of Mulroy Bay to Measure the Efficacy of a New Sewage System, Loreto Community School.

Individual: 1 Emily Johnson, Optimising wind turbine efficiency, Newbridge College; 2 Angelina O Neill, Making Plastic out of Fish scales, Presentation College; 3 Lorcán Ó Fearáil, “Le dó nó gan a dó” – Forbairt retardant dóiteáin éiceabhách chun caipeadh tinte fiáine a rialú, Coláiste Ailigh.

Intermediate

Group: 1 Maria Talhi, Rosheen Sharma, Under the lamp! An investigation into the impact of nail salon UV lamps in causing skin damage and comparing protective methods to provide UV light protection, Rockford Manor Secondary School; 2 Gráinne Cronin, Alex Neff, Dylan Ó Muirí, Mata sa léim cuaille, Gaelcholáiste Charraig Ui Leighin; 3 Oisín O’Neill, Darragh Henderson, Developing a device for economically viable desalination of seawater for individuals in developing countries, Oatlands College.

Individual: 1 Ethan Dewhirst, A comparative study: Physicochemical characteristics and health-promoting properties of Donegal heather honeys Vs Maunka Honey, St Columba’s Comprehensive School; 2 Conor Gibney, PharmaCheck: A Medicine Interaction Checker, St Clare’s Comprehensive School; 3 Rachael Burns, An investigation into alternative feed stock for the production of Biodiesel fuel contributing to a cleaner environment, Coláiste Dún an Rí.

Senior

Group: 1 Lydia O Leary Kelleher, Sophie Creedon, An investigation into the biomechanics of heading a football with implications for the design of protective, wearable technology for measuring and recording cumulative non-concussive cranial impacts, St Mary’s Secondary School Mallow; 2 Mahdi Abass, Abdullah Abid, Solving Reaction-Diffusion Equations – Reflections on Some Mathematical Problems Arising in Alan Turing’s Theory of Morphogenesis, Christian Brothers, Synge Street; 3 Aaron Waldron, Conor Quinlivan, Factors Affecting Muon Flux Density, Mungret Community College.

Individual: 1 Alanna Hayes, An Analysis of Routing Algorithms for Electronic Design, Scoil Mhuire; 2 Coren Hughes, Optimising Packing Problems With Computational Analysis And Further Mathematics, Mercy Secondary School Mounthawk; 3 Rachel Feeley, A Surgical Forceps Incorporating Frustrated Total Internal Reflection For Energy Efficient Sealing and Cutting of Tissue Using Light Energy, Mercy Secondary School Mounthawk.#

BT Young Scientist: Special Award winnersOpens in new window ]

Social & Behavioural Sciences

Junior

Group: 1 Jessica O’Keeffe, Martha O’Sullivan, Edel Ryle, Imscrúdú ar nósanna athchúrsála cearta, ar dearcthaí daoine agus cloí leis na treoirlínte athchúrsála i measc an phobal i gcoitinne, Kinsale Community School; 2 Caolan Mc Taggart, Matthew O Farrell, Daithi Mac Diaramada, An bfhuil tionchar ag ardaithe costas bhreosla ar an cinneadh fuinneamh in athnuaite a úsaid sa teach, Coláiste Ailigh; 3 Bartle D’Arcy, Adam Maxwell, The Name Game; Do people judge you based on your first name rather than on observed ability? Castlepollard Community College.

Individual: 1 Maria Lenny, An Investigation into the Effect of Ball Target Practice on Memory Function among Primary School-Aged Children, Loreto College; 2 Danny King, ‘Big P’ or ‘little p’? A study of young people’s conceptions of and engagement in politics, Pobalscoil na Tríonóide; 3 Emily O’Regan, Binge drinking is a problem BUT could it be all in the pour? Colaiste Muire.

Intermediate

Group: 1 Morette Aylward, Roisin McElwee, A Look Into Our Minds; When Are We At Our Most Dangerous, Presentation Secondary School; 2 Ruth Cooper, Sarah Barlow, Does the average age of a group of students affect how likely they are to be influenced by the imposed pressure of the participating group, Loreto Secondary School; 3 Sophie Brennan, Ava Clare, Flow Forecast, Loreto High School.

Individual: 1 Leah Nolan, Vaping Under The Influence: An investigation into the impact of social media on adolescent attitudes towards vaping, Loreto Secondary School; 2 Eoin O Keeffe, Examining the experiences and effects of overtraining in young athletes, Colaiste Treasa; 3 Ava Conerney, G. E. T together – Girls in Engineering and Technology, St Brigids College.

Senior

Group: 1 Eimear Evans, Molly Doyle, Emma Dunne, To investigate the effect temperature has on concentration and memory levels, Tullamore College; 2 Meadhbh Harrison, Lily Golden, Ellie Gilbert, Sex Bias in the Diagnosis of Chronic Illnesses, Sacred Heart School; 3 Manna Mathew, Sharal D’Costa, Engaging the monster within: Unlocking the psychology of the origin of phobias in primary and post-primary students, Rockford Manor Secondary School.

Individual: 1 Tara Mulhall, Forecasting an individual’s political leaning based-off their social media profile, Newbridge College; 2 Nakai Mudiwa, Do 18 year olds have the cognitive ability to vote fairly? Newpark Comprehensive School; 3 Rafiah Islam, Nuclear Power in Ireland – is Stigma holding us Back? Laurel Hill Secondary School FCJ.

Technology

Junior

Group: 1 Éabha McBride, Layla Nolan, Using machine learning and classification algorithms to improve the UV index formula, St Joseph’s Secondary School; 2 Kamaya Gogna, Allison Joyce, Using machine learning for biome recognition on Earth and beyond, St Joseph’s Secondary School; 3 Hazem Ahmed, Muhammad Billal Ali Khan, Buy or Rent? A predictive analytical algorithm to predict house prices using machine learning, Coláiste Phádraig CBS.

Individual: 1 Conan O’Brien, SteriAir – A portable UV sterilising breathing pack, Kinsale Community School; 2 James Molloy, Reduce Emergency Department Waiting Times using AI to read X-rays, Belvedere College S.J; 3 Joe Molloy, Creating New AI Proof Captchas, Gonzaga College.

Intermediate

Group: 1 Sebastian Galvin, Julian Lewandowski, Evan Wynne, A Solution to Coastal Flooding in Irish Cities, Sutton Park School; 2 Aadishesh Mohan, Daniel Kaminski, Donncha McGrath, Analysis of sentiment variation in news reporting and consequential user activity, St Kilian’s Deutsche Schule; 3 Minahil Mir, Tamima Abedin, Abbey McNamara, Hit The Books, Coláiste Nano Nagle.

Individual: 1 Weichen Huang, Self-Supervised Cross-Modal Representation Learning, St Andrew’s College; 2 Shaunak Mohapatra, Creating a secure and accessible healthcare platform, Confey Community College; 3 Seán O’Sullivan, Investigating The Viability of Micro-Level Wind Generation, Colaiste Chiarain.

Senior

Group: 1 Taha Fareed Farooqi, Jevin Joy, Exploring Apophenia and Pareidolia in Machine Learning, and Optimising for Predicting Stochastic Patterns, Coláiste Phádraig CBS; 2 Andrei Florian, Ilya Solovjov, An Investigation into Global Gene Sequence Screening and the Development of a Novel Screening System, St Aidan’s CBS; 3 Vedh Kannan, Will Carkner, BloodBox: A Diagnostic Tool for Blood-Borne diseases, Sutton Park School.

Individual: 1 Solomon Doyle, DermAI – Deep Neural Network Based Detection Tool for the Classification of Benign and Malignant Skin Lesions in Aid of Early Prognosis, Dundalk Grammar School; 2 Tiernán Stevenson, Hydrogen Powered Viscous Boundary Layer Jet Engine Concept, Blackwater Community School; 3 Diarmuid Hayes, Mathematics can keep us honest, Coláiste Iognáid SJ.