App To Help Autism Educators Earns Accolades For Fairfax Student

HERNDON, VA — Veda Murthy, a 13-year-old Fairfax City resident, recognized that some teachers were having difficulty communicating with their autism spectrum disorder students while they were remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Because it's an online environment, you cannot communicate effectively through speech or language," said the rising eighth-grader from Rachel Carson Middle School in Herndon. "The only way teachers can understand the ASD children is through facial expressions."

Family members of an ASD student are better able to identify the emotions of their child, and so Murthy developed a Cognitive Emotion Interpretation Application to share that information with educators.

"It utilizes technology such as artificial intelligence and emotional recognition technology to help interpret the ASD children and it has a powerful impact on the ASD community," she said.

Murthy first became aware of the problem when she read an online news story in which a Fairfax County parent expressed concern that her ASD child was not learning anything through remote learning. Instead, her child was getting angry and frustrated trying to communicate with their teacher.

"I was really interested in how teachers could understand better in an online environment," Murthy said. "This led me to more research on how family members can understand them, which is through facial expression. So, that led me to create my solution."

Murthy's computer application recently helped her to become one of 10 finalists in the 2021 3M Young Scientist Challenge. Sponsored by 3M and Discovery Eduction, the annual competition recognizes students in grades 5-8 who use their scientific know-how to come up with innovative solutions to improve lives, both locally and globally.

After developing her app, Murthy recorded a two-minute video presentation, which she submitted to 3M.

Murthy said she was excited to learn she was one of the 10 finalists. Over the summer, she will be working with her mentor, Dr. Vasav Sahni, to make her application a reality. Sahni is a 3M researcher specialist, who develops technology for electronics, consumer goods, healthcare, and automobiles.

"I get to meet with my mentor on a daily basis and expand my solution," she said. "It's also just exciting to expand my solution. It's really interesting to me, this experience of prototyping and just the scientific experience of working with a scientist is extremely insightful to me."

On Oct. 18-19, Murthy and the other nine finalists will compete at the 3M Innovation Center in Minneapolis for the $25,000 grand prize, which includes a unique destination trip and the title of America's Top Young Scientist.

From a young age, Murthy has been interested in science, taking part in a number of competitions such as the Science Olympiad.

"This really sparked an interest in me, since I could utilize time to create solutions to problems in my community, relevant problems that I face every single day," she said.

Looking to the future, Murthy said she plans to pursue a career in science. Currently, she wants to become a doctor, specifically an epidemiologist.

"This actually started with COVID," she said. "In the beginning of the pandemic, I was shocked to see that epidemiologists were so quick and fast in finding out what this new virus was, with [Director of NIAID] Anthony Fauci delivering so many speeches about COVID-19 and the safety precautions."

Inspired by the health community's response to COVID-19, Murthy even launched a club called Disease Detectives at her school.

"It's dedicated towards talking about epidemiology and the current trends in epidemiology," she said.