Student places second in world neuroscience competition

Incoming Waterloo Science student Nooran AbuMazen has won second place at the 2016 Brain Bee World Championship in Copenhagen before she even attends her first university lecture. The grade 12 Waterloo Collegiate Institute student, who is starting a bachelor of science in the University of Waterloo's Honours Biology Co-op program in the fall, represented Canada at the international neuroscience competition. The contest pitted 26 of the world’s top high school students against each other as they tested their knowledge of the brain and neurological conditions.

Incoming University of Waterloo student Nooran AbuMazen competed in the 2016 Brain Bee World Championship in Copenhagen.

From Waterloo to world championship

In April, AbuMazen competed in — and won — the regional brain bee hosted by the Department of Kinesiology. The win secured her a spot at the national competition held at McMaster University in May.

“I thought it would be a good opportunity to see how much I knew, and might be fun,” said AbuMazen. “I didn’t expect to win the regional competition, let alone the national one.”

Her strong finish at the international competition was fuelled, in part, by weekly coaching sessions with the Department of Kinesiology.

Working with fourth-year student Adriel Firtandi and last year’s regional winner Zarina Mamoukhova, AubMazen studied real brain tissue in the University’s anatomy lab. This hands-on experience gave her a competitive advantage when it came to identifying parts of the brain during the national competition.

“I was able to study off of real brains. Not many high school students have that opportunity,” said AbuMazen, who is now funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to work in a neuroscience lab as part of her national win.

Competing against the world’s best

To prepare for the world competition on June 30, AbuMazen ramped up her lab time, fitting in extra sessions with Robyn Ibey, a neuroscience PhD candidate and organizer of the University of Waterloo Brain Bee. They focused on two of the more challenging components of the competition — clinical scenarios and brain pathways.

The Brain Bee program was founded in 1998 by Professor Norbert Myslinski of the University of Maryland to address the growing rates of neurological diseases and inspire the next generation to pursue careers in clinical neuroscience. The University of Waterloo has run a regional brain bee program since 2009.