Scholar earns national recognition
Rising Farragut High School senior Roshan Ramanan — already well-known as captain of the school’s East Tennessee Scholar’s Bowl team, which won first place earlier this year — has another honor.
He recently learned he is only one of two students state-wide to place among the top 150 students nationally in the United States National Chemistry Olympiad ((USNCO), sponsored by the America Chemical Society (ACS), making him an honors recipient.
The process began earlier this calendar year when Ramanan took an East Tennessee chapter level test conducted at his school. He decided to participate initially due to an already-present interest in chemistry “as a potential career path.”
After earning a high score on the ETN chapter exam, he was selected as one of only 12 students to advance to the national competition, with no more than two students eligible from any single school.
The national exam was held at Roane State Community College and more than 1,000 participants nationwide competed.
Ramanan described the national test as “a roughly five-hour exam covering college-level general and organic chemistry with multiple choice, free response and laboratory practical sections.”
He was notified of his honors placement very recently, at which time the top 20 national high scorers also were notified, making them eligible to attend a two-week study camp.
With another year ahead, Ramanan said making the top 20 and attending the camp, in which four students are selected as the U.S. team for the International Chemistry Olympiad, “is a goal for me for next year.”
It also leads to a potential career goal, as the chemistry scholar said he is interested in studying chemical engineering in college.
This summer, Ramanan is doing an eight-week internship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to further his interest in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics).
He is the son of Dr. Ramanan Sankaran and Aarti Ramanan.
