New York Teen Wins First Place at JSHS for Her Scleroderma Research Project

Last year, the Scleroderma Foundation received a request from New York high school student Evelyn (Eva) Rajan. Eva needed help getting statistics about scleroderma patients for her Intel Science Research project on "The Correlation between Depression Symptoms and Length of Disease in Scleroderma Patients." Dr. Ann Impens, a research investigator at the University of Michigan Scleroderma Program, was Eva's project and research advisor. At Eva's request, the Scleroderma Foundation created an online survey to help Eva gather additional data on the scleroderma population. The survey was distributed to over 9,000 men and women via the Scleroderma Foundation's weekly eLetter. Survey responses were anonymously compiled and sent directly to Eva.

On February 6, 2010, Eva informed the Scleroderma Foundation that she had won first place in the Medicine Category, and 2nd place overall at the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS), in Cross River, N.Y. She competed with 340 other students. Eva was very shocked and exclaimed, "I cannot believe I won second place out of 340 people!"

At the competition, Eva presented her findings to three judges who graded her based on her research poster. Many people asked questions about her project and became interested in scleroderma, which pleased her because she wanted to bring awareness to the disease.

Eva wants to personally thank the scleroderma community for its help. She said, "Thanks to the responses I received from my survey, I was able to put together a well-rounded project." Indeed, Eva's project was an strong example of the ways in which students can educate their communities about scleroderma!