2022 IBB World Championship Announcement

Winners of the 2022 International Brain Bee

15-year-old Canadian high school student Helene Li is the 2022 International Brain Bee (IBB) World Champion. Second place went to 17-year-old Anmol Bhatia from the USA, and third place to 17-year-old Ugne Birstonaite from Lithuania. The winners were announced at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) Forum 2022 in Paris. The 11 finalists joined the conference stage by Zoom and were introduced by special guest and last year’s World Champion Viktoriia Vydhzak from Ukraine.

The Brain Bee is the world’s premier neuroscience competition for teenagers. The World Championship brings together students from across the world for an important educational and cultural experience A total of 31 national Brain Bee champions from across the globe took part in the virtual 2022 event held on July 2-9, hosted by FENS and organized in collaboration with the Paris Brain Institute. Each competitor had previously won their national or regional Brain Bee to qualify for the international championship.

The challenging competition was conducted in two parts. All competitors completed four separate tests (written exam, neuroanatomy, neurohistology, and patient diagnosis) under pre-arranged supervision within a 3-day timeframe at the beginning of the World Championship. Based on their total combined scores, 11 finalists advanced to the Live Judging Session, a question-and-answer round with four prominent neuroscientist judges.

Dr. Jean-Antoine Girault, FENS President, said “It was a delight to host the International Brain Bee world championship at the FENS Forum 2022 this year. Although virtual, the event still took place on centre stage and inspired an audience of over 7,800 scientists. It was an honour to celebrate the achievements of these extraordinary high school students, our scientific future!”