[EFFORTPOST]
EDIT 3: ISEF removed him from the winner's page and are revoking the 50k! Will they make any changes for next year? No one knows!
EDIT 2: His lab at USC has removed him from the lab members page 
EDIT: Nice job r-slurs, you made him take his Linkedin account down.
This is starting to be picked up by the small chuddie internet personalities, so get in while it's still hot! Here's the summary. Very long so buckle up kids 
:
- Regeneron ISEF is this big science fair for high school nerds that's been around since the 1950s. It's considered the most prestigious science fair for high schoolers and 80+ countries participate. Winners usually get an all-expense paid trip & stay & activities (like a Universal Studios day etc) at the location which rotates every year (this year was in California). Not only is it
but there's money involved! The top winner gets $75k (life changing money for poor countries like UK) and the 2 runner ups get 50k. Plus lots of special awards, prizes, etc. And the top winners are basically guaranteed to get into Harvard/MIT/Stanford.
- To get to ISEF in the US, you have to win your local state fair and get nominated to ISEF, so its pretty selective. You undergo several rounds of judging locally and then a day of judging at the ISEF itself. Judges are supposed to at minimum have a PhD or 6 years of experience in whatever category they are judging.
ruh-roh
- This year the 50k winner is this
17 yr old kid who did his project on "machine-learning research to identify microbial genetic sequences that can be modified to biodegrade plastic." Besides saving the world, he is apparently a neuroscience research fellow at USC. His dad is a wealthy Silicon Valley VC dude from India, and his older sister goes to USC studying quantitative bio 
Note that his category is "Environmental Engineering" and the competition was hosted in California this year.
A few days after winning, a mysterious, anonymous document began to circulate in the ISEF community claiming Pai fabricated most of his project. The letter asks ISEF to investigate & fix their system for the future. Even I got sent this document from a friend, despite being a winner like 15 years ago. The document is 36 pages long and very detailed. It's worth skimming through because of how hilarious & obvious this fraud was: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e4vjzp6JgClCFXkbNOweXZnoRnGWcM6vHeglDH1DmGM/edit It regularly has 50-100 people looking at it at all times of the day.
- TLDR: very obvious and extensive fraud. Kid took images of research done, mirrored them and claimed them as his own. Said he invented a rasberry pi based device and had pics of it, was invented by someone else 3 years ago and this kid just used those pics (didn't even re-make the device!). All his data is extremely sketch, some results are straight up impossible, & numbers pulled out of butt. On top of the fraud, the kid is a complete dumbass. Spelling errors everywhere, he doesn't understand basic concepts of ML/AI, and he stole half his project from the ISEF winner 3 years ago. No idea how ISEF let this through...
At some point, a few reddit posts were made, the biggest one on /r/ApplyingToCollege. Ofc, the kid got absolutely blasted in the comments as the evidence is pretty much darning. Many parents chimed in saying they were pissed (understandably) bc their little einstein worked so hard and got fricked. Being Reddit, it is likely that this is when the Open Letter started getting sent to internet personalities, schools' admissions offices, Society4Science, the kid's school in California, etc
Reddit link (note 50% deleted, we'll get to that in a bit):
Archive (couldn't find one that had the original post, if you find it, let me know and I'll update): https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1cw3vgc/winner_of_regeneron_young_scientist_award_50k/
- A few hours after the original reddit post, a post from a "friend" of the ISEF kid was also posted in /r/A2C. It's honestly too hilarious to summarize appropriately. Let's just say, this "friend" sounds a lot like a mad sexy Indian dude parent
Deleted post: https://old.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1cwhf7k/accused_of_chaeting_at_major_science_fair/
Notice the spelling errors, probably just a coincidence that our accused finalist also made several spelling errors in his $55k winning project 
Of course, a popular post should NEVER be allowed to stay up
so our A2C jannies got straight to work and deleted the original post as well as this one, banned several accounts, deleted comments, etc. Oh you expected the jannies to explain why they deleted it? you're not entitled to other people's labor, chud: https://old.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1cw3vgc/winner_of_regeneron_young_scientist_award_50k/On the sidelines, lots of drama is happening in various Groomercords associated w/ college admissions & ISEF. As I am not a
, I have not joined them and don't know the details. But I have heard from my younger siblings' friends that a bunch of kids from Pai's school (CCA a bougie San Diego school with enough resources to literally have a lab at their school) "raided" a server (aka spammed the shit out of it) making fun of the kid/enjoyed being the center of attention.Other Reddit posts on smaller subs are also gaining traction: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/comments/1cwpfcg/biggest_high_school_science_fair_had_academic/
Now if this was just a Reddit story, eh whatever. But never underestimate the ability of a
to find random stories that fit their narrative 
https://www.karlstack.com/p/exclusive-scandal-at-americas-top
- On top of this reporting, it began blowing up on Twitter (blowing up being relative to how much a children's science fair can be expected to blow up). Several huge accounts (100k+ followers) chimed in and Twitter commenters began showing off their r-slurredness as usual and creating some tasty drama.
(see screenshots in comment)
The lab the kid worked at had originally made a post celebrating, but started getting mean comments and have since deleted it. https://x.com/WallySeldom/status/1792656953421992082
Don't forget: ISEF is a global competition. So our BING CHILLING
friends also started talking about it.
https://bbs.wenxuecity.com/znjy/6853039.html
https://huaren.us/showtopic.html?topicid=3018297
(See comments for screenshots)
- So, what has Society For Science and Regeneron ISEF done now that everyone knows & this is getting public attention? Disabled their YouTube comments of course!
- Ok, just kidding, they also apparently sent out an email to all Fair Directors (people who run the local fairs) saying they are "investigating"
idk, from looking at the Open Letter document, seems like some kids did all the investigating for you dumbasses. And this isn't soft plagiarism/exaggerating, this is the kind of shit that gets your paper retracted as a Dana-Farber Cancer Institute tenured professor, so not sure what's left to investigate.
- What happens next? You decide! Some are worried that this kid might kill himself (seems unlikely given that he still has his socials up, posted about it on Linkedin, his family members and him are full denying that he cheated, etc). Some say frick dem kids and want him/his parents to go to jail. It seems the only way this can escalate further is if it makes it into the national news (any chuds want to send an anonymous tip to InfoWars
). I'll conclude with a quote from the kid himself, as these were his candid thoughts after winning $55k for a fraudulent project. You may think that he would be thankful, excited to see how his research will be implemented, wants to keep working on plastic waste research- you'd be wrong!
I'm looking forward to my future and how this ISEF award can really help me out
Wow, regardless of what happens, I too am excited to see this kid's future: he clearly has already mastered the art of research in 2024 and is well on his way to academia! Best of luck little
Also I have more screenshots but I hit the upload limit. Fricking 
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From the AskAcademia post:
In a lot of scientific communities, particularly those in academia or adjacent to academia, there's huge incentives to act as a mentor, even if the student only gets internal exposure. In most cases mentors just dump work on students, give them access to facilities, fill out their timesheets, and otherwise ignore them, so it's a low-effort way to get positive performance reviews.
Same with judges at the ISEF really - they're putting in the minimum amount of effort, they're not looking to tear apart the research like they would their colleagues because there's almost no incentive to look into a high school student that deeply. Except when it blows up like this LMAO
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You still think anyone would have at least read this shit just once, but judging by the spelling errors not even that happened.
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he got through 3 fairs (school, state, isef) with not a single person reading his research.
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His father is filthy rich, you say? Or does every project now need to be checked? Basically are the judges more lazy or corrupt?
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at local fairs probably corrupt (parents are often judges), at isef probably lazy
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I wouldnt be surprised if every judge was doing the needful for money and favors.
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