Seven Psychology and Science Research students competed in the third annual Brain Bee competition April 6 at Nova Southeastern University. First, students took a written 32-question test about various psychology-related topics, and the top nine scorers moved onto an oral testing round.
“It is my first time coming to Brain Bee,” junior Jara Jacobson, who qualified for the second testing round and placed fourth, said. “I understood around 50 percent of the material after studying the ‘Brain Facts’ book that Brain Bee uses. I recommend studying it for anyone interested in competing, because Brain Bee gets a lot of their questions from it. The same company also has a 3D brain website, and I recommend using that too.”
As the tests were graded, attendees could view various research posters created by both high school and graduate students. Juniors Hanna Zheng, Akshay Kumar and Roshini Shivakumar won first, second and third place, respectively, in the poster competition, and junior Akshay Kumar placed second in the testing round. “We had a student win across both categories for the first time,” Psychology Club advisor Lara Herrera said.
From left to right: Juniors Roshini Shivakumar (3rd), Akshay Kumar (2nd) and Hanna Zhang (1st) and their winning posters. (Photo/Ann Zohar Hershkovitz)
“When I was putting my poster together, I had to spend so much time on the research. I used multiple sources and decided to go with a mix of research articles and review sources and compared them,” sophomore Mia Hernandez said. “I chose this topic because, as a child, psychosis has always interested me. I had a friend who had psychosis and that was my first learning of it. I want to inspire people to further research [psychosis] with my poster.” (Photo/Ann Zohar Hershkovitz)
“Personally, I’m a big advocate for women’s health, and my project is about replicating head trauma in pregnant women modeled on flies,” junior Roshini Shivakumar said. “I volunteer at Cleveland Clinic and a lot of female patients come in after suffering a traumatic brain injury and ask ‘what’s gonna happen to my child?’ and I’d like to tell them that everything is going to be alright through my project.” (Photo/Ann Hershkovitz)
While displaying posters, judges and attendees asked students various questions about the making of presentations and the motivation behind topic selection. “I’m really interested in criminal psychology, and conduct disorder doesn’t really have a specific cause. I wanted to research it to figure out a possible treatment early on in order to prevent it from growing into a more severe case,” junior Maria Denishenko said. (Photo/Ann Zohar Hershkovitz)
After poster presentations, guest speaker Bob Speth, a professor for the NSU College of Pharmacy, presented a slideshow about deadly nightshade and Atropine poisoning. (Photo/Ann Zohar Hershkovitz)
