SSIS Students Shine in Global Biology Olympiads

Nineteen SSIS high school students stepped onto a global stage this semester and delivered results that reflect everything we love about how science is learned at SSIS.

Competing in two of the world’s most respected biology competitions, the USA Biology Olympiad (USABO) and the British Biology Olympiad (BBO), our students went up against thousands of peers from around the world.

Both competitions challenge students to reason through unfamiliar data, unusual scenarios, and complex questions, skills that are built over time, through curiosity and practice.

How Our Students Placed

In the USABO, 19 SSIS students competed, earning:

• 1 Semifinalist - Ryn (G12)
• 2 Honorable Mentions (Top 20%) - Hyenseo and Michelle (G11)

In the BBO, 14 students competed, earning:

• 5 Silver Awards - Dayeon (G12), Ben, Voon Ang, Reinah, and Michelle (G11)
• 2 Bronze Awards - Yu-Fei (G12) and Bella (G10)
• 2 Highly Commended Distinctions - Yewon (G11) and Yu-Chen (G10)

Across both competitions, these results place SSIS students among the top performers worldwide.

Meet the Seniors: Dayeon, Ryn, and Yu-Fei

Our three Grade 12 students stand out this year, not only for their results but also for what their journeys represent.

A USABO semifinalist, Ryn channeled their passion for science into their IB Extended Essay on how soil conditions affect snail shell thickness. This months-long field study required adapting methods and resilience against weather delays. Ultimately, Ryn is drawn to biology because the subject keeps revealing more, from cellular processes to unusual animal adaptations.

Dayeon earned a BBO Silver Award. Her passion for biology deepened through independent research exploring whether a chemical compound could help agricultural plants better withstand climate stress, work that made the leap from classroom to real-world relevance feel immediate and meaningful.

Yu-Fei, who earned a BBO Bronze Award, competed in the USABO in Grade 11 and decided to try the BBO in her final year purely out of curiosity and a desire to test herself. She plans to pursue medicine and feels the competition is a chance to explore how her two years of IB Biology would hold up against something new.

All three students first engaged with biology competitions earlier in their high school years. Returning as seniors, with university offers already secured, was a choice fueled by their passion for the subject.

Where a Passion for Biology Begins

Results like these come from years of asking questions, running experiments, and learning to sit with uncertainty.

Ryn traces their scientific curiosity back to Grade 8, deepening it when they arrived at SSIS in Grade 9, where they found a richer environment for lab work and inquiry. Dayeon found her footing through research, discovering how deeply connected classroom biology is to the challenges scientists are actually working on in the world. Yu-Fei, who has been at SSIS since her earliest school years, describes her interest growing gradually through content that kept surprising her.

“I really liked seeing it all come together and form the processes I can literally see in my everyday life,” she said. “When a doctor in the hospital explained the EKG waves, I thought: this is review from IB Biology!”

All three students describe science as a creative process: forming a hypothesis, testing it, being surprised by results, and revising their thinking. That mindset, more than any single result, is what these competitions reward.

Their teachers played a real role, too, and each senior emphasizes the support they’ve received. “Both Dr. Katz and Dr. Adelantado are really open to providing these opportunities,” Yu-Fei shared. “Even just having conversations with them expands your interest in the subject.”

What This Reflects About Learning at SSIS

The breadth of achievement in this group, from Grade 10 to Grade 12, across two competitions, speaks to a consistent pattern: students here are willing to keep challenging themselves, even when it isn’t required.

For Dayeon, Ryn, Yu-Fei, and their peers, biology is clearly a way of exploring the world, and this semester, that curiosity took them far. Congratulations to all the participants!