Thirty students won various awards for their research projects at the Synopsys Science and Technology Championship, on March 12 at the San Jose Convention Center.

Students from ninth to twelfth grade had projects ranging from the topics of computers and mathematics to environmental sciences.

Junior Ankita Pannu, who worked on facilitating the navigation of online cancer support groups, picked her project after a family member was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Her goal was to assist cancer patients who may not receive all the information that they need from their doctors.

“My project helped me dig deeper into a really interesting area in the world of computer science, artificial intelligence, and natural language processing,” she said. “I really enjoyed working on this project because it is applicable to other realms apart from cancer, and I think it will prove to be useful if incorporated in other areas.”

Others like Vikas Bhetanabhotla (12) researched topics in astrophysics and methods to locate satellite galaxies of Milky Way galactic analogs. His research was centered on identifying whether or not a galaxy was a satellite. He chose his topic because of his interest in physics and computer science.

“Through my algorithms, I was able to identify the most indicative properties in distinguishing a galaxy as a satellite, thus providing a more reliable basis for identification applicable to other cosmological studies,” he said. “Ultimately, my algorithms achieved 97 percent accuracy in identifying satellite galaxies.”

Advisors of the award-winning students Gary Blickenstaff, Chris Spenner, Susan King, and Jeff Sutton guided the students by helping them develop topics and overcome obstacles. The teachers had goals beyond winning awards and recognition for the Synopsys participants.

“I wanted [the students] to have the experience of presenting their work formally to a broad audience, which it turns out the judges at Synopsys are pretty broadly qualified,” said Research and AP Physics C teacher Chris Spenner.

Biology teacher Gary Blickenstaff assisted students with how to do scientific research, which he believes is more involved than most students think.

“[I wanted to help students with] how to deal with issues and overcome them so [that they] can have some success in the research,” he said. “And help them over some of the hurdles and challenges that they faced,” he added.

Synopsys winners will find out what awards they won at the high school awards ceremony on Sunday at the Campbell Heritage Theater.