Ottawa Brain Bee

Congratulations to Emma Rees from Canterbury High School for taking home first place at the 2025 Ottawa Brain Bee! We are also thrilled to announce that Emma won the 2025 Canadian National Brain Bee and placed 2nd at the International Brain Bee! This summer, Emma had the opportunity to volunteer in the Abizaid lab at Carleton University where she mastered the immunohistochemistry technique. The Ottawa Brain Bee Committee would also like to congratulate Shyla Oommen and Sanvi Purohit for finishing in second and third place, respectively! This was our largest competition to date, and we would like to thank all the participants who made the 2025 Ottawa Brain Bee such a success!

Congratulations to Anya Sinha from Merivale High School for taking first place at this year’s Ottawa Brain Bee! As part of the first-place prize, Anya participated virtually in the 2024 Canadian National Brain Bee where she performed quite well! Additionally, she undertook a summer internship in the Hildebrand Lab where she put her knowledge into action and explored topics related to the spinal cord and pain processing. The Ottawa Brain Bee Committee would also like to congratulate Jennifer Liu and Shyla Oommen for taking home second and third place, respectively! Big thank you to all our participants for helping to make the 2024 Ottawa Brain Bee a fun and successful competition!

Congratulations to Adam Mulugeta of Ashbury High school for taking First place at this year’s Ottawa Brain Bee competition! As part of the first place prize, Adam got to travel to Hamilton, Ontario to represent Ottawa at the 2023 Canadian National Brain Bee competition. Moreover, Adam, along with former International Brain Bee winner, Helene Li, got to spend their summer working in a Carleton University Neuroscience research lab as part of their first place prizes – a paid research internship! The Ottawa Brain Bee Planning Committee would also like to congratulate Harsh Mutupri and Jet Chiang for taking home second and third place, respectively! And thank you to all the amazing students who participated in the 2023 Ottawa Brain Bee!

This year was the first year that the Ottawa Brain Bee went back to in-person competition since the Covid-19 pandemic, with students getting to meet and socialize with one another in-person while testing their passion for neuroscience! Our planning committee was very excited to bring the competition back in-person, as students got to experience several new things that were previously not possible virtually! During the breaks, students got to take lab tours where neuroscience research really happens, got to meet Carleton University graduate students who explained their research and shared their passion, and were provided lunch and snacks to help feed those hungry, brilliant brains during the competition! Our planning committee was able to bring back a beloved component to the competition that we could not do virtually; patient diagnosis. Students got to assume the role of doctor for this component and run through diagnostic questioning of our group of volunteer graduate students portraying some psychiatric or neurodegenerative disease or disorder! Want to be a part of this? Sign-up using the QR code to get updates about when our FREE prep course goes live!

Congratulations to our 2022 Ottawa Brain Bee winner, Helene Li! This year’s competition was held virtually, due to on-going Covid-19 restrictions, but that did not stop the Ottawa Brain Bee students from giving it their all during the competition! The Ottawa Brain Bee Planning Committee would also like to congratulate Ruhi Mayar and Harsh Mutupuri for placing second and third place, respectively. We would also like to thank all the students who participated in this year’s virtual competition, it was a blast to host!

This year was a special year for the Ottawa Brain Bee, and for the country. Not only did Helene win the Ottawa Brain Bee, she also showed her true passion for neuroscience and everything brain related by taking home first place at the Canadian National Brain Bee competition, a first for Ottawa! On top of this, Helene got to represent Canada at the 2022 International Brain Bee, where she won FIRST there! Helene’s hard work and dedication was truly on full display as she demonstrated that Canada is the top for the next generation of neuroscientists!

Leo Vanciu, a grade 11 student at Jean-de-la-Mennais High School took home first place, and went on to place 4th at the CIHR National Brain Bee. Ruhi Nayar, a grade 11 student at Colonel By Secondary School placed second, with Richard Ma, also a grade 11 student at Colonel By Secondary School, placing third. We want to thank all of the competitors for their patience during the competition as it was the first time the Brain Bee went virtual. We would also like to thank our planning committee for helping organize things on the back end for the local competition and on competition day.

Sofia Cuertara, a grade 11 student at St. Joseph high school took home first place, and won a paid internship in a neuroscience research lab at Carleton University. Sofia also went on to compete at the Canadian National Brain Bee at McMaster university. Rafidah Chowdhury, a grade 10 student from Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf took second place, and Mihir Kamra, in grade 11 at Colonel By High School, came third! We want to congratulate all our competitors for their hard work and a great showing, and to thank our fantastic volunteers for helping with the training sessions and hosting the event!

Melisa Eraslan, also from Colonel By high school, took First place, followed closely by David Zhu, also of Colonel By. We’d like to thank all our participants and volunteers for helping us put on a great event and we look forward to working with our students again in 2019, as we start prepping for the next Brain Bee! You can find out more about Brain Bee winners from previous years, here