Franklin Award Scholars 2022

Franklin Academy is proud to recognize the Franklin Awarded Scholars 2022, a group of talented students whose research projects demonstrated academic curiosity, creativity, analytical thinking, and strong scholarly potential.

The 2022 awarded scholars explored a broad range of topics across machine learning, environmental science, biomedical research, public policy, psychology, social science, energy systems, and data analysis. Their work reflects Franklin Academy’s commitment to supporting students as they ask meaningful questions, investigate real-world issues, and develop the skills needed for advanced academic research.

Through their research projects, these students showed discipline, intellectual independence, and the ability to connect classroom learning with complex problems in the world around them. Franklin Academy is honored to celebrate their achievements and recognize the effort behind each project.

The following students were recognized as Franklin Awarded Scholars 2022 Award Winners and Finalists for their outstanding research performance and project outcomes.

Kaylee Wei — 1st Place
Research Topic: Detecting Forms of Habitat Loss Using Geospatial Machine Learning

Grace Zhou — 1st Place
Research Topic: Gene Panel Design for MERFISH: Reflections From Literature Study and Computational Analysis

William Lai — 2nd Place
Research Topic: Predicting the Danger of Particulate Matter Pollution from Wildfires Using Classification Models

Stephen Huang — 3rd Place
Research Topic: How Allocatively Efficient Is the City of Milpitas with American Rescue Plan Funds

Sally Liao — Finalist
Research Topic: Analyzing Predictive Factors for Bullying Through Machine Learning Models

Henry Yao — Finalist
Franklin Awarded Scholar 2022 Finalist

Grace Tan — Finalist
Research Topic: Interpreting the Amnesic Effect of Benzodiazepines Using Machine Learning Models

Preston Zhang — Finalist
Franklin Awarded Scholar 2022 Finalist

William Zhai — Finalist
Franklin Awarded Scholar 2022 Finalist

The 2022 award-winning and finalist projects highlight the academic range of Franklin students. From geospatial machine learning and wildfire pollution prediction to MERFISH gene panel design, public funding analysis, bullying prediction, and machine learning applications in biomedical research, these students pursued projects that required both technical understanding and original analysis.

The following students were recognized as Franklin Awarded Scholars 2022 Semifinalists for their strong research work and meaningful contributions to their chosen areas of study.

Sophia Tang
Research Topic: Comparing ML Algorithms for Temperature Prediction with Fuel Production and Consumption

Leslie Dong
Research Topic: Speech Emotion Recognition

Jeffrey Zhu
Research Topic: Exploring K-Means and Minibatch K-Means Clustering

William Chen
Research Topic: Analysis of U.S. Nuclear Power Plants from 2013–2021

Angela Du
Research Topic: Trends Between COVID-19 Cases and Deaths in 5 U.S. Regions Using an SVR and DTR Model and Speculating the Effectiveness of COVID-19 Prevention Methods

Valerie Cheng
Franklin Awarded Scholar 2022 Semifinalist

Joshua Xiong
Research Topic: The Lonely Labyrinth: An Evaluation Study of a Serious Game for Adolescents

Xintong (Alice) Ye
Research Topic: Quantitative and Qualitative Analyses on the Characteristics of Social Media Comments Regarding COVID-19 Vaccination

Zihan (Selina) Zhao
Research Topic: The Relationships Among Gender, Age, Body Image, Social Media, and Anxiety

Julianne Wang
Research Topic: Friends or Foe? Gender Differences in Friendship Status and Friendship Characteristics

The 2022 semifinalist projects demonstrate strong academic breadth and real-world relevance. Students explored topics including machine learning algorithms, speech emotion recognition, nuclear power, COVID-19 data modeling, adolescent mental health, social media analysis, vaccination discourse, body image, anxiety, and friendship characteristics.

Research gives students the opportunity to move beyond standard classroom assignments and engage deeply with questions that require investigation, analysis, and interpretation. A strong research project asks students to identify a meaningful topic, study existing knowledge, evaluate information, and communicate their findings clearly.

For students, this process builds important academic habits. They learn how to ask better questions, work through uncertainty, revise their thinking, and support conclusions with evidence. They also strengthen long-term project management, problem-solving, academic writing, data interpretation, and independent learning skills.

The Franklin Awarded Scholars 2022 represent the value of student-driven inquiry. Their work shows that young scholars can explore advanced subjects when they are given the structure, guidance, and encouragement to pursue meaningful research.

One of the defining strengths of the 2022 awarded scholar list is the range of academic fields represented. Students pursued research in STEM, machine learning, biomedical science, environmental studies, public policy, psychology, energy systems, social science, and data analysis.

This interdisciplinary range reflects Franklin Academy’s belief that research should help students connect academic learning with personal interest and real-world relevance. Some students focused on technical and scientific topics, while others examined social behavior, public health, government spending, adolescent development, and online communication.

The 2022 research topics included questions such as:

• How can geospatial machine learning help detect habitat loss?
• How can gene panel design support MERFISH-related biomedical research?
• How can classification models predict the danger of wildfire-related particulate matter pollution?
• How efficiently did a city allocate American Rescue Plan funds?
• How can machine learning help identify predictive factors for bullying?
• How can machine learning models interpret the effects of benzodiazepines?
• How do machine learning algorithms compare in temperature prediction?
• How can speech emotion recognition be studied and applied?
• What trends appear between COVID-19 cases and deaths across U.S. regions?
• How do social media comments reflect public attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccination?
• How are gender, age, body image, social media, and anxiety related?
• How do gender differences appear in friendship status and friendship characteristics?

These questions show that Franklin students are not only learning information; they are applying knowledge to complex topics and developing the confidence to think like researchers.

Franklin Academy congratulates all students recognized as Franklin Awarded Scholars 2022. Their achievements reflect dedication, curiosity, creativity, and a strong commitment to academic excellence.

We are proud to celebrate the 2022 award winners, finalists, and semifinalists for their research accomplishments. Their work represents the spirit of inquiry that Franklin Academy hopes to inspire in every student: the courage to ask meaningful questions, the discipline to pursue evidence, and the confidence to share ideas with others.

Congratulations to all Franklin Awarded Scholars 2022. We look forward to seeing how their academic journeys continue to grow.