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.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|
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.
How old is Shripriya Kalbhavi?
No source consulted gives an age or birth year; she is identified as a ninth grader in 2023.
Where did she go to school?
Lynbrook High School in San Jose, California.
Where is Shripriya Kalbhavi now?
Nothing published after October 2023 was found in the sources used for this page.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Shripriya’s story?
What is EasyBZ?
Where did Shripriya Kalbhavi place in 2023?
Who was named America's Top Young Scientist in 2023?
Sources
- 14-year-old named America's Top Young Scientist for development of skin cancer treatment — Discovery Education, 2023-10-11
- 14-Year-old from California Named America's Top Young Scientist — Discovery Education, 2022-10-19
- 14-year-old named America's Top Young Scientist for inventing an AI handheld pesticide detector — Discovery Education, 2024-10-16
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
Discover More Child Prodigies
50+ stories of contemporary young geniuses changing chess, music, science, and art.
Explore All Prodigies →
