Having competed in and volunteered at regional, invitational, state, and national level Science Olympiad competitions, the impassioned members of UMASO understand the intricacies of different styles of tournaments and what makes an event memorable. We aim to draw on these experiences to bring a novel Science Olympiad experience to high school teams in New England through a tournament that is inclusive and hands-on.
Inclusive:
Although eastern Massachusetts teams have historically been given local opportunities to compete in many invitationals, western Massachusetts teams have been underrepresented. We change this by offering a high-quality annual tournament in Amherst, promoting STEM to high schools that would find this opportunity to be unique and impactful.
Hands-on:
Many Science Olympiad tournaments and teams have historically focused more on book-knowledge while neglecting the experiential portions of different events. We place special emphasis on the importance of stations and build events in our tournament to promote a hands-on learning process.
A group picture of the organizing team at the first meeting of the year!
Jalal Elsallal
Neuroscience 2026
Ben Kuchma
Physics + Computer Science 2025
Erin Kim
Biomedical Engineering 2026
Larry Jin
Mechanical Engineering 2026
Kiruba Shalin
Biology 2026
Jack Guo
Electrical + Computer Engineering 2026
Victor Chen
Computer Science 2026
Divyesh Biswas
Computer Engineering 2026
Robert Li
Biology 2024
Mari Cornwall-Brady
Math 2026
Tiffany Tan
Biochemistry + Molecular Biology 2026
Ellen Chan
Biology 2026
Felix Manuel Pantoja
Biology 2026
Tiffany Zheng
Biochemistry + Molecular Biology 2026
Our 2023 tournament could not have run without our amazing event supervisors!