On 21 September, Yuri Milner’s Breakthrough Junior Challenge announced its 2024 finalists: 16 young people who have created videos under two minutes long that make a scientific topic easy to understand. These finalists include the Popular Vote top scorer Lehnaaz Rana, who amassed the most reactions to her video on social media.
The yet-to-be-announced winner will receive life-changing prizes: a $250,000 college scholarship and a $150,000 state-of-the-art science lab for their school — plus $50,000 for a teacher who inspired them.
The Breakthrough Junior Challenge Judging Process
Since applications opened in spring, over 2,300 teenagers from over 200 countries entered the competition. They produced almost 30,000 videos between them before the deadline in June, when the comprehensive judging process began.
First, entrants participated in the Peer-to-Peer Review, scoring each others’ videos to decide who would go through to the Administrative Review in July.
Following this review, the Evaluation Panel scored and judged the top 75 submissions based on how well the creators communicated complex ideas in engaging and imaginative ways, using demonstrations, diagrams, simulations, and other creative elements. Challenge staff then reviewed and verified the submissions, whittling the list down to just 30 entries.
In September, the Breakthrough Junior Challenge invited the public to get involved in the judging process through the Popular Vote. The public voted for their favourite videos on Facebook and YouTube, crowning their Popular Vote winner. The 30 videos reached over 500,000 people, spreading scientific education worldwide.
The finalists have now moved to the next stage of the judging process, the Selection Committee, where a panel will choose the top five videos for final consideration. The Popular Vote winner’s video will move straight to the final alongside these five videos.
Here’s a look at each of the 2024 finalists’ video entries.
1. Emilie Efendy
Emilie, age 17 from the U.S., created her video on the Higgs boson. She explained that particles get their mass depending on how much they interact with the Higgs field. She then explored the discovery of the Higgs boson and the new branch of physics that this discovery opened.
2. Arabelle Elliot
Arabelle, age 15 from the U.S., created her video on physics derived from overtones in music. She explained why the same note sounds different when played on multiple instruments.
3. Jasmine Eyal
Jasmine, age 16 from the Czech Republic, created her video on mechanogenetic cellular engineering. She introduced the new technology that could one day replace insulin injections, which would make managing diabetes much easier.
4. Grace Yihua Lee
Grace, age 16 from the U.S., created her video on Fermat’s principle of least time. She made the principle easy to understand using a creative blend of animations and physical demonstrations.
5. Alessandra Storm Mauricio
Alessandra, age 16 from the U.S., created her video on antibody drug conjugates. Her high-energy, superhero-themed animation explains how these biopharmaceutical drugs combat cancer cells.
Alessandra’s video received the most social media reactions from all videos created by North American students, making her a Regional Champion.
6. Evelynn Moorman
Evelynn, age 18 from the U.S., created her video on atomic clocks. She explained why measuring time with these clocks is far more accurate than measuring time based on the earth’s rotation.
7. Lauren Park
Lauren, age 17 from the U.S., created her video on Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem. She explained that, historically, mathematicians believed maths was complete — that they could prove all true statements from a set of axioms — until Gödel proved this isn’t the case.
8. Rephael Torrence S. Raagas
Rephael, age 18 from the Philippines, created his video on why capsaicin, found in chilli peppers, creates a burning sensation when we eat spicy foods. He explained that scientists have discovered that capsaicin triggers a protein called TRPV1, which senses heat.
This discovery has opened new treatment and research pathways for cancer treatments, inflammation detectors, and capsaicin pain relief patches.
Rephael accumulated more reactions to his video on social media than any other video creator in Asia, making him a Regional Champion.
9. Mathew Ruggieri
Mathew, age 18 from the U.S., created his video on gravitational lensing. He explored how the distortion of light creates images like the Einstein Ring and Einstein Cross. He also demonstrated how light takes multiple paths through star systems and galaxies on its way to Earth. He explained that astronomers can locate dark matter, stars, and exoplanets that participate in this distortion.
10. Addison Shea
Addison, age 17 from the U.S., created her video on chromatin regulation. She explained what makes a muscle cell different from a bone cell and how these cells create different proteins even though they have the same DNA.
11. Conner Sisemore
Conner, age 18 from the U.S., created his video on why the older we get, the faster we feel time is moving. He explained that as children, we absorb huge volumes of new information. As we get used to the world, we absorb less new information and see “fewer frames per second”.
12. Joylin Song
Joylin, age 15 from the U.S., created her video on how caffeine prevents us from becoming tired — and why some people are more tolerant of it than others. She used a fun animation to explain that caffeine prevents adenosine, a chemical in our cells, from allowing the body to become tired.
13. Yipu Wang
Yipu, age 18 from Australia, created his video on the beauty of the Möbius strip. His demonstration using paper, followed by a sophisticated animation, shows how and why the shape has countless mathematical properties.
14. Chetan Yenigalla
Chetan, age 17 from the U.S., created his video on sonogenetics. He explained that although human cells can’t respond to ultrasound, the recent discovery of TRPA1 — a channel protein compatible with human cells that activates a response to ultrasonic waves — could change things. With this protein, it could make it possible to treat neurodegenerative diseases with processes involving genetic modification.
15. Mikayla Young
Mikayla, age 14 from Singapore, created her video on CRISPR and genetic engineering. She explained how the CRISPR gene editing process works and explored its potential applications, from growing better-quality crops to treating genetic diseases.
16. Popular Vote Top Scorer: Lehnaaz Rana
Lehnaaz, age 17 from India, won the Popular Vote with her video on OHP cancer treatment, which garnered over 16,000 reactions on social media. In her video, she explained how OHPs can use the body’s DNA structure to eradicate cancer without side effects.
Popular Vote Regional Champions
Alongside top scorer Lehnaaz and the finalists who won the Popular Vote in their regions, the Breakthrough Junior Challenge is celebrating four more Regional Champions:
- Qudsiya Badri, age 16 from the United Arab Emirates, is the Middle East and Africa Regional Champion for her video on epigenetics.
- Alejandro Polo, age 18 from Panama, is the Central and South America Regional Champion for his video on prions and protein folding.
- Gurdit Singh, age 18 from the UK, is the Europe Regional Champion for his video on spectroscopy.
- Tali Whiteridge, age 17 from New Zealand, is the Australia and New Zealand Regional Champion for her video on the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Each finalist and Regional Champion’s video has impressed not only the judges but viewers worldwide. They each follow in the footsteps of last year’s champion, Sia Godika. The 17-year-old from India won the Challenge with her video on pluripotent cells.
The Breakthrough Junior Challenge Founders: Julia and Yuri Milner
The Milners founded the Breakthrough Junior Challenge through their Breakthrough Foundation. As Giving Pledge signatories, they have agreed to donate most of their wealth to philanthropic causes, especially those that advance and celebrate science.
Alongside the Breakthrough Junior Challenge, the couple’s other enterprises include the Breakthrough Prize (the world’s largest science award) and the Breakthrough Initiatives (a collection of space science programmes).
On top of this, Yuri Milner is the author of the short book Eureka Manifesto: The Mission for Our Civilization, which proposes that humanity has a shared mission to explore and understand our Universe.
Meanwhile, Julia and Yuri Milner’s Breakthrough Junior Challenge gets young people excited and fascinated by science’s deepest concepts as they educate each other with fun, creative videos.
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