Spark Care+
The winners listing of the 3M Young Scientist Challenge names one student for each year and gives the winning project a title. For 2021 it records Sarah Park and Spark Care+: Personalized Music Therapy for Mental Health Disorders. The research record compiled for this page describes the same entry as artificial-intelligence-personalised music therapy.
Both versions carry the same two ideas: that the therapy is music, and that the selection of it is tailored to the individual rather than fixed. Neither says how the personalisation was done, what data it used, who it was tested on, or what was measured. The name is documented; the mechanism is not.
What the entry does not claim
A student prize is a judging outcome. The listing records that a panel preferred this project to the rest of a national field in 2021, and that is the whole of what it certifies. It does not report a clinical study, a measured effect on any condition, or a product in use.
That distinction matters more than usual with a mental-health project, because the language of therapy invites readers to hear a treatment claim where none has been made. No source used here states that Spark Care+ was trialled, reviewed, approved or adopted, and this page makes no such statement.
One winner a year
America's Top Young Scientist is awarded once a year, to one entrant, in a national competition for middle-school students in the United States. There is no category split and no shared first place.
The effect is a very clean record and a very thin one. The competition publishes a year, a name and a project title, then moves on to the next cohort. It does not track what winners do afterwards, which is why later reporting, where it exists at all, has to come from the press rather than from the organisers.
The list around 2021
Park's year falls in a sequence dominated by health and detection. Rishab Jain won in 2018 with an artificial-intelligence method for pancreatic cancer radiotherapy, Kara Fan in 2019 with nanoparticle wound care and Anika Chebrolu in 2020 with molecular docking work on a COVID-19 antiviral. Leanne Fan followed in 2022 with Finsen Headphones, using machine learning and phototherapy against middle-ear infections.
Earlier winners on the same page had built energy and environmental machines: Peyton Robertson's salt-water sandbag in 2013, Sahil Doshi's PolluCell in 2014, Hannah Herbst's ocean energy probe in 2015, Maanasa Mendu's piezoelectric wind device in 2016 and Gitanjali Rao's Tethys lead detector in 2017. The most recent entries are Heman Bekele's melanoma-treating soap in 2023, Sirish Subash's handheld pesticide detector in 2024 and Kevin Tang's fall-detection system in 2025.
A common name
Sarah Park is a common name, and searches for it return people with no connection to this competition. The only identifier the official listing supplies is the year and the project title, so Spark Care+ is the reliable anchor for anyone trying to confirm they have the right person.
The research record compiled for this page places her in Jacksonville, Florida, drawing on an encyclopaedia summary rather than on the winners listing, which gives no home town for any winner. That detail is carried here as unconfirmed, not as part of the documented record.
What is documented — and what is not
The firm facts: the 2021 title of America's Top Young Scientist, awarded by the 3M Young Scientist Challenge, for a project titled Spark Care+: Personalized Music Therapy for Mental Health Disorders.
The gaps: no age or date of birth, no grade, school or photograph, no description of how the personalisation worked, no testing, no results, no prize amount, no quotation from her, and no reporting on anything after 2021. The Jacksonville detail is unconfirmed. On a page about a child, each of those blanks is left as a blank.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rajveer Meena | India | Reciting 70,000 decimal places of pi blindfolded | Age 0 |
| Peter Imafidon | United Kingdom | Reported in 2008 as, with twin sister Paula, the youngest ever to pass an… | Age 7 |
| Andrej Živanović | Serbia | Junior Mental Calculation World Championship titles | Age 11 |
| Faith Odunsi | Nigeria | Winning the Global Open Mathematics Tournament at 15 | Age 15 |
| Sarah Park | United States | America's Top Young Scientist, 2021 | — |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Named America's Top Young Scientist in the 2021 3M Young Scientist Challenge (official winners listing)
- Project recorded as Spark Care+: Personalized Music Therapy for Mental Health Disorders
- The challenge names one winner a year, with no categories
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- No description of how the personalisation worked, and no data, testing or results
- No age, grade, school, photograph or prize amount in the source
- Jacksonville, Florida comes from the research record and is unconfirmed
- No reporting on Spark Care+ or on Park after 2021
Questions people ask about Sarah Park
What is Spark Care+?
The title of Sarah Park's winning 2021 project, given by the competition as Personalized Music Therapy for Mental Health Disorders. The research record describes the personalisation as artificial-intelligence-based.
How does Spark Care+ work?
No source used here explains the mechanism, the data it used or how the music was selected. Only the project title is documented.
How old is Sarah Park?
No source in this record gives an age or a date of birth.
Where is Sarah Park from?
The research record places her in Jacksonville, Florida, from an encyclopaedia summary. The official winners listing gives no home town.
Where is Sarah Park now?
Not documented here. The competition does not follow winners after the award, and no later reporting appears in this record.
Is Sarah Park on Wikipedia?
The research record lists no Wikipedia article for her. Because the name is common, any match would need the 2021 project title to confirm it.
Has Spark Care+ been clinically tested?
No source used here reports a trial, a review or an approval. The prize records a judging outcome, not a clinical finding.
Who won the challenge the following year?
Leanne Fan, in 2022, for Finsen Headphones, which used machine learning and phototherapy against middle-ear infections.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Park’s story?
What is the name of Sarah Park's winning project?
In which year did she win the 3M Young Scientist Challenge?
What do the sources say about clinical testing of Spark Care+?
Sources
- Young Scientist Lab — past winners of the 3M Young Scientist Challenge — 3M Young Scientist Challenge (official)
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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