Kalyn You, a senior at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts, was named a 2025 National STEM Festival Finalist.
The National STEM Festival is a nationwide initiative to foster creativity, critical thinking and a passion for STEM among middle and high school students. The Festival accepts entries from students in grades 7-12 that explore STEM innovations, inventions and research addressing real-world problems, according to a release. Entries for the Festival were accepted in six categories: Environmental Stewardship, Future Food, Health & Medicine, Powering the Planet, Aerospace Innovation and Tech for Good.
You of Everton was selected as a Finalist for research conducted during her junior year. Her project focused on new psilocin derivatives that could result in potential new treatments for depression. You’s research was conducted as part of a physical science capstone course taught by ASMSA faculty members Dr. Brian Monson and Dr. Burt Hollandsworth.
You said she used a computational chemistry suite to model psilocybin-related compounds to find correlations and predict potency values for fluorinated psilocybin.
“The goal of my project is to not only find new medicines that could be useful to psychiatry but also to raise awareness for unorthodox treatments for mental health disorders that are more efficacious than conventional ones,” You said.
The competition is sponsored by EXPLR, a streaming video and curriculum service for students in the 5th through 12th grades as well as teachers and families.