Shripriya Kalbhavi: EasyBZ and the 2023 3M Runner-Up Prize

Biography

Second place, October 2023

Discovery Education announced the result on 11 October 2023. The title of America's Top Young Scientist went to Heman Bekele, a ninth grader at W. T. Woodson High School in Annandale, Virginia, for a skin-cancer-treating soap, with $25,000.

Kalbhavi was second with EasyBZ, described as a cost-effective microneedle patch enabling self-administered drug delivery without traditional pills or injections, and received $2,000. Sarah Wang, a seventh grader at The Pike School in Andover, Massachusetts, took third with a glove designed to detect epileptic seizures, also for $2,000. Annie Katz won the public-voted Improving Lives Award for an automated ultrasound device to detect hamstring lesions.

Why microneedles matter

A microneedle patch is an array of needles too short to reach the nerve endings that register pain, mounted on an adhesive backing. Pressed onto the skin, it delivers a drug through the outer layer without a syringe, a trained injector or, in most designs, a sharps bin afterwards.

The clinical appeal is in what it removes rather than what it adds. Injectable drugs require cold chains, clinics and staff; oral drugs are destroyed by the digestive tract if they are large molecules, which is why insulin and most biologics cannot simply be swallowed. A patch a patient can apply alone sits between the two. The obstacle has generally been manufacturing cost, which is precisely the term Kalbhavi's entry is described as addressing: cost-effective, self-administered.

The summer that makes the prototype

The 3M Young Scientist Challenge invites middle school students to enter with a short video setting out an idea. Ten finalists are chosen, and each is paired one-to-one with a 3M scientist as a mentor for the summer, with the explicit brief of turning the concept into a working prototype before the final.

That structure is why the finalists' projects sound like products rather than experiments. A student arrives at the two-day final in St Paul having spent months with a professional researcher on materials, tolerances and testing. The judging then weighs ingenuity, the application of science and engineering, passion for research, presentation and the ability to inspire, which is a list that rewards the whole arc from idea to demonstration.

The line she joined

The challenge's recent record shows a consistent preference for cheap medical devices aimed at access rather than at novelty. The 2022 winner, Leanne Fan, built headphones that detect and treat middle-ear infection with machine learning and blue light; the 2022 runner-up, Harini Venkatesh, a faster and cheaper way to measure short-sightedness. The 2024 winner, Sirish Subash, built a handheld pesticide detector.

Set beside them, EasyBZ is characteristic: an established idea from the research literature, pushed towards a price a household could meet. That is a legitimate and underrated kind of invention, and it is the kind a fourteen-year-old with a mentor and a summer can plausibly advance.

What is documented, and what is not

Firm: Kalbhavi was a ninth grader at Lynbrook High School in San Jose, California; she placed second at the 2023 3M Young Scientist Challenge with EasyBZ; the prize was $2,000; the final ran on 9 and 10 October 2023 at 3M's global headquarters in St Paul, Minnesota.

Not documented: her age or birth year, the materials or drug used in the patch, any test results, whether the design was pursued after the competition, and anything published about her since October 2023.

Achievement Timeline

Shripriya Kalbhavi — every milestone on this page, in order.

2023

Named one of ten finalists in the 3M YNamed one of ten finalists in the 3M Young Scientist Challenge and paired with a 3M scientist mentor for the summer

9-10 Oct 2023

Competes in the two-day final at 3M's Competes in the two-day final at 3M's global headquarters in St Paul

11 Oct 2023

Announced as runner-up with EasyBZ andAnnounced as runner-up with EasyBZ and $2,000; Heman Bekele takes the title with a skin-cancer-treating soap

Since 2023

No further published record found in tNo further published record found in the sources used for this page

Watch: Shripriya Kalbhavi on camera

Shripriya Kalbhavi - 3M Young Scientist Challenge 2023 first runner-upSrinivas Kalbhavi

Historical Comparison

Person	Country	Milestone	Age / Stat
Shripriya Kalbhavi	United States	Second place, 2023 3M Young Scientist Challenge	—
Raphael Hurley	Ireland	Young Scientist of the Year 1998, the mathematics of Monopoly	—
Marina Dimitrov	United States	America's Top Young Scientist, 2009	—
Minula Weerasekera	United States	Second place, 2024 3M Young Scientist Challenge	—
Harini Venkatesh	United States	Second place, 2022 3M Young Scientist Challenge	—

What is documented — and what is not

✓ Documented

Second place and $2,000 at the 2023 3M Young Scientist Challenge with EasyBZ
Ninth grader at Lynbrook High School, San Jose, California
EasyBZ described as a cost-effective microneedle patch for self-administered drug delivery
The final ran 9-10 October 2023 at 3M headquarters in St Paul

? Unverified, disputed or wrong

Age and birth year are not stated
No materials, dosing or test data for the patch are published
Nothing documented about her work after October 2023

Questions people ask about Shripriya Kalbhavi

What is EasyBZ?

Shripriya Kalbhavi's entry to the 2023 3M Young Scientist Challenge: a cost-effective microneedle patch that lets a drug be self-administered without pills or injections.

What did she win?

Second place and $2,000.

Who won the 2023 challenge?

Heman Bekele, a ninth grader from Annandale, Virginia, for a skin-cancer-treating soap, with $25,000 and the title America's Top Young Scientist.

What is a microneedle patch?

An adhesive array of needles too short to reach pain-sensing nerve endings, which delivers a drug through the outer skin without a syringe or a trained injector.