Australia's ‘brainiest' secondary school student, Eva Wang from Brisbane, has won today’s final of the 2013 Australian Brain Bee Challenge in Adelaide.
Australia's only high-school neuroscience competition, initiated by The University of Queensland’s Queensland Brain Institute, is designed to identify the student with the greatest neuroscience knowledge.
Eva will now compete in the International Brain Bee Competition in Washington DC in the US in August.
Eva, from all-girls school Somerville House in Brisbane, outsmarted eight other finalists in a series of examinations at the national final for Australia and New Zealand.
She was previously the 2010 Courier Mail Spelling Bee winner, and is considering a future in science or medicine as a researcher, doctor or surgeon.
Eva is the third Queenslander to take out the National competition in a row, with the previous two winners, Jackson Huang and Teresa Tang, both going on to win the International Brain Bee Competition.
The competition focussed on knowledge about memory, intelligence, emotions, sensations, movement, stress, ageing, sleep, Alzheimer's disease and stroke.
The competition format consists of questions and answers, laboratory tests, microscope neurohistology tests, patient diagnosis with actors, and magnetic resonance imaging and brain imaging analysis.
The Brain Bee Challenge is designed to motivate students to learn about the human brain, and inspire them to consider careers as clinicians and researchers working to treat and find cures for more than 1000 neurological and psychological disorders.
About 5500 students from more than 300 schools participated in the 2013 competition.
The Australian runner-up was Ricky Chung from James Ruse Agricultural High School in New South Wales, and the New Zealand winner was Thomas Chang from Auckland Grammar School.
For more information or to register for the 2014 Australian Brain Bee Challenge visit www.abbc.edu.au.
Media: Mikaeli Costello, Director Advancement and Communications, Queensland Brain Institute, +61 401 580 685 or mikaeli.costello@uq.edu.au
Queensland Brain Institute
The Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) is a world-class research facility based at The University of Queensland’s (UQ) St Lucia campus. Researchers at QBI make great contributions to the field by studying fundamental cellular and mechanistic processes, as well as disorders and diseases from early brain development through to later life. Our scientists work to understand complex functions such as cognition, ageing, neurological disease, mental illness, and learning and memory. www.qbi.uq.edu.au
Australasian Neuroscience Society
The Australasian Neuroscience Society (ANS) is a non-profit organisation of scientists and physicians who study the brain and nervous system and are actively involved in research and teaching. www.ans.org.au
