Announced March 4, Bellarmine Marine Chemistry senior Ben Schomogyi was awarded third place at the prestigious Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS) for Washington state. Schomogyi was the only student from Bellarmine’s Marine Chemistry Class of 2024 to be originally accepted into JSHS making his accomplishment even more impressive.

This upcoming May, Schomogyi will go on to compete at the national level in New Mexico for a chance to win scholarship money. When asked about his placement and acceptance into JSHS, Schomogyi was shocked: “I was not not expecting to get accepted as a finalist, let alone place in it.”

Schomogyi co-wrote his research paper with fellow senior Cole Wicklander but due to JSHS rules, only one student for group projects can present their research. 

Their research paper titled, “The Design and Evaluation of a Trap for Tracking the Settling Preferences of Adolescent Crabs” was written over the course of this school year’s first semester. But according to Schomogyi, their research involved more than just a few months of work: “We came up with the plan on February 28, 2023. Since then, we have worked on the project roughly once a week.”

Schomogyi and Wicklander developed their research thanks to Bellarmine teacher Ron Nilsen. Schomogyi said “I initially wanted to do something with robotic surgery, however, I transitioned to Mr. Nilsen’s project idea and instantly had fun with it. My interest only increased when we started to actually perform the research.” 

With one final comment, Schomogyi went on to credit his class for their support, “My Marine Chemistry peers and teacher Dave DeGroot helped me achieve this honor by giving me motivation and competition. We all push each other to do better, and we all strive to be the best, so actually pulling off what I did was vastly due to them.”