HCHS 9th Grade Student Miles W. wins the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge (Thermo Fisher JIC)!

Congratulations to 9th grade HCHS student Miles W. for winning the national Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge!  Miles combined his interest in origami with his concerns about people impacted by natural disasters experiencing loss of home and need for immediate shelter.   We are so proud of you, Miles!  
The Thermo Fisher JIC, a program of Society for Science, reaches 60,000 middle school students nationwide, inspiring them to pursue their STEM interests and explore exciting college and career paths. The 30 finalists, who were selected from nearly 2,000 applicants representing 48 states, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico; are counted among the nation’s brightest students.  Winners were chosen by a panel of distinguished scientists, engineers and educators and the finalists’ schools also received a $1,000 grant to support STEM programming.   While we have had students who advanced to the semifinals (2 others this fall! ) and to the finals in the past, HCHS has never before taken this national top prize
 
Miles is 14 years old and his project used the strength of origami folds to propose the development of lightweight shelters that can be rapidly deployed in areas affected by natural disasters.  Here is his YouTube explanation of the project:  https://youtu.be/QCODaKLzL-w?si=LI2PvXQUl4URgqqb
  
Here is the press release from the Society of Science:  https://www.societyforscience.org/press-release/thermo-fisher-jic-top-awards-2025/
 
I want to extend my congratulations to Miles and his family and also to our science competitions advisor, Ms. Samuels, the HCHS Science Department Chair, Dr. Philip Jeffery and the HS Science Department for their support of our astonishing science research opportunities at Hunter College High School.
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