Sojas Wagle is now eligible to participate in the International Brain Bee Championship.
Indian American students won all three spots at the USA Brain Bee Championship hosted by the University of Maryland.
Indian American Sojas Wagle has become the second Arkansas student in as many years to win the championship beating runner-up Aarthi Vijayakumar of Minneapolis and Amit Kannan of Indianapolis who came in at third place, Arkansas Online reported on Saturday.
Wagle is now eligible to participate in the International Brain Bee Championship that will be held August 3-6, in conjunction with the American Psychological Association conference. He also won an eight-week internship in a neuroscience laboratory and a donation will be given to the brain disorder charity of his choice, the Alzheimer’s Association.
The USA Championship, held in Baltimore from March 17 to 19, witnessed great competition from the winners of 51 Brain Bee chapters in 30 states. The national contest included written and oral exams, patient diagnoses using actor patients, and microscopic slide studies as well as exercise in labeling brains and using MRI, the website reported.
“I studied harder and kind of perfected the neuroanatomy section to make sure I was familiar with all parts of the brain and could point those out on a brain model,” Sojas Wagle told Arkansas Online about his preparations for this year’s contests.
The 15-year old sophomore at Springdale’s Har-Ber High School wants to pursue a career in medicine, possibly neurology. His father Sameer Wagle is neonatologist and mother Aparna Wagle works as a computer laboratory manager for the Springdale School district.
Sojas told Arkansas Online that the eight-week internship will likely to be delayed until the summer of 2018 so that he can spend time this summer preparing for the world championship.