Middle School STEM Team Soars to Fifth in State Competition

Kent Place’s Middle School STEM team is having a momentous year. At the New Jersey State Tournament, the team took home fifth place out of a field of 27. This was an incredible feat in a highly competitive field, advancing from 12th place in 2025 and 21st in 2024.

At the competition, Kent Place placed in the top 10 in 14 events. The team garnered:

• First, Experimental Design
• Second, Entomology
• Third, Machines
• Fifth, Crimebusters, Disease Detectives, Meteorology & Metric Mastery
• Sixth, Anatomy & Physiology, Rocks & Minerals
• Seventh, Mission Possible
• Eighth, Solar System & Hovercraft
• Ninth, Boomilever & Codebusters

“This achievement is awe-inspiring. I’m so proud of every member of the team — it’s an honor to coach them,” says Wendy Hall, Middle School science teacher.

This year’s Middle School team consists of Divyanshi Bansal ’31, Bella Cai ’31, Claire Chen ’30, Estelle Chen ’30, Katie Cui ’30, Pearl Dawadi ’30, Charvee Gandhi ’31, Aanya Gupta ’31, Katie Hu ’30, Kairady Johnson ’30, Gitanjali Kameswaran ’30, Aadya Kumar ’30, Brie Peterfreund ’31, Sonia Sheth ’31, Gia Subbiah ’31, Myra Wadhawan ’30, Emma Xu ’30, and Chloe Zhang ’30.

The team’s state win follows its outstanding performance at the Union College Regional Science Olympiad Tournament, held on January 13, where the girls earned an impressive third place overall out of 14 teams and secured medals in multiple events. Read more about their regional performance here.