About Us
Our Mission
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 + Math 2026
Divyesh Biswas
Computer Engineering + English 2026
Mari Cornwall-Brady
Math 2026
Tiffany Tan
Biochemistry + Molecular Biology 2026
Ellen Chan
Biology 2026
Trisha Truong
Biology 2027
Bhavya Agarwal
Computer Science + Math 2027
Felix Chen
Finance 2027
Sruthi Guntupalli
Biomedical Engineering 2027
Zayya Htut
Biomedical Engineering 2027
Akshara Nair
Food Science 2027
Penny Reynolds
Microbiology 2027
Our 2024 tournament could not have run without our amazing event supervisors and test writers!
| Event | Name |
|---|---|
| Air Trajectory | Jeffrey Wei |
| Anatomy and Physiology | Eddie Zhao, Elaine Qu, Sahana Potu |
| Astronomy | Eric Chen |
| Chemistry Lab | Alexander Ajouri, Yaozu Chen |
| Codebusters | Alexander Li, Andrew Weiner |
| Detector Building | Jay Sahni, Akelan Krishnasamy |
| Disease Detectives | Penny Reynolds, Vibav Tammisetti |
| Dynamic Planet | Advikar Ananthkumar, Ishaan Verma |
| Ecology | Crystal Nguyen, Ellen Chan |
| Experimental Design | Amy Nguyen |
| Fermi Questions | Eddy Zhao, Sahil Gandhi |
| Forensics | Daniel Ren |
| Forestry | Runyan Zhou, Amy Meng |
| Fossils | Joanna Li, Advikar Ananthkumar |
| Geological Mapping | Eric Xiang, Phoebe Han, Raymond Gao |
| Microbe Mission | Lily Thai, Zayya Htut |
| Optics | Kevin Alexander, Vidit Pokharna |
| Robot Tour | Hampton Moore, Anvitha Ramachandran |
| Scrambler | Meredith Loscar |
| Tower | Hampton Moore, Anvitha Ramachandran |
| Wind Power | Eric Chen, Jason Liu, Tamer Srouji |
| Write It Do It | Rohini Josh, Shafeena Uddin |
| Analytical Reasoning* | Mari Cornwall-Brady |
| Ornithology* | Janae Robinson, Erika Lu |
| Psychology and Neuroscience* | Arien Khan, Jaclyn Nguyen |
| Science Quiz Bowl* | Jake Rosen, Sharanya Budakoti |