2026 Team

The five members representing Carmel at this year's National Science Bowl, plus our B and C teams.

2026 Carmel Science Bowl A, B, and C teams with Coach Ward at the Indiana Regional Science Bowl.
2026 Carmel Science Bowl — Indiana Regional
Back row: Katherine, Rohan, Colin, Alexander, Allen, Jacky, Edward, Riva, Daniel, Coach Ward
Front row: Hrishabh, Jason, Amy, Pravira, Bryan

A Team

Subject specialty notation: capital letter = primary, lowercase = secondary.

Edward Chen

Captain · Junior · MPa

Edward Chen is a junior who specializes in Uranus science. Recently, he entered the lucrative trade of typo hunting, and now spends the majority of his free time carefully inspecting Kevin Zhou handouts for any typos. This pursuit recently led him deep into the M7 fluids handout, where he learned both why roofs fly off in storms and, more critically, that Kevin Zhou's childhood trampoline did not survive Hurricane Sandy. Edward is also a fan of human learning, and is currently attempting to anneal his temperature to near-zero before nationals, avoid catastrophic forgetting, and travel the world in search of “da real global minimum.” He also maintains a color-coded “Turfbays” spreadsheet sorted by grade, which his teammates have described as both endearing and alarming. When not discovering the elbow lever during Science Bowl practices, Edward can be found twiddling the bamboo flute and running to the bus stop every morning.

Riva Jain

Junior · B

Riva Jain is a junior who, against all odds, got her drivers license this November. A tennis player by sport and paint beast by nature, she is perhaps best known as the one elusive victory that has been evading Allen in Smash Ultimate. She has been described to wield Kirby with a certain assuredness that refutes all claims that she just “spams buttons,” or “lacks any real understanding of gameplay.” Standing at a charitable 5 ‘1 and a half, Riva claims that she could dunk on the others “any day, any time” much to the team's vehement denials. Aside from Riva’s superior athleticism, she enjoys listening to niche artists like BruYes Neptune and Earnest Sea (EBK), pondering the social and economic state of the world, and indulging in classical literature. As a noted philosopher, she often likens Jacky's instagram reels addiction to Sisyphus and his boulder while herself maintaining a sustained hiatus of social media, a strategy Edward calls “dopamine loading.” When she is not attempting to fraud ESS questions, Riva can be found furthering her crippling Snapple addiction and sliding on her opps.

Jacky Cai

Senior · C

Jacky Cai is a senior with an obsession with squirrels from the genus Marmota, as he makes it his life’s goal to befriend a marmot. Jacky has an impeccable sense of hearing and listening comprehension skills, despite Allen’s unfounded claims that he needs to go into “hearing quant” to “lock in.” During practice, Jacky is known for being a mediocre buzzer in utter defiance of the fact that he has (unofficially) participated in science bowl for 3 years. Although his expertise is in chemistry, Jacky is also a professional cloud critic. Outside of Science Bowl, Jacky is known for not wearing his glasses, which renders him incapable of recognizing anyone not immediately in his path. In his free time, Jacky enjoys reading (and forgetting) textbooks, practicing his regular pentagon drawing skills, and doomscrolling.

Daniel Jia

Sophomore · EA

Daniel Jia is a sophomore who specializes in Earth and Space science. Outside of science bowl, Daniel can usually be found in his basement working on robotics while spending most of his time convincing his teammates that the robot “actually works this time”. He firmly believes in the design philosophy that if something isn’t working it can always be fixed with zip-ties. Daniel often gets clowned on for his white girl music taste and is still on track this year to make Taylor Swift his most listened to artist for the 5th year running. In his free time, Daniel enjoys eating and taking naps while exercising his professional big-backery.

Allen Qian

Senior · A

Allen Qian is a senior who can only be described as a hybrid of an M1 Abrams, an ASU frat leader, and LaMelo Ball. He lives up to this comparison, taking after LaMelo both on the basketball court and behind a steering wheel (he’s the best driver on the team). As the only one blessed with peak human athleticism, Allen often flexes his “elite ball knowledge” over his teammates. When he’s not watching “The Town” and Whiplash on repeat, he is the best smash ultimate player around, having easily beaten almost everyone at Carmel SciBowl with Jigglypuff, despite allegations that he uses a “no-skill” character. As a self-proclaimed “astro demon,” Allen exclusively buzzes on “stock” and trash categories, and enjoys backseating his teammates from the bench. This year, he aims to develop a 40-inch vertical and get drafted by the Kings, and sign a contract with Major League Eating.

B Team

C Team

Coach

Mr. Ward

Faculty Sponsor

Coach Nick Ward earned a degree in marine biology from Eckerd College to fulfill his childhood dream of training sharks at an aquarium in Miami, Florida for seven years. After meeting his wife at the aquarium, they decided to escape the suffocating traffic and crippling housing market of Miami and move closer to Coach Ward's family in Indiana where they both became teachers. Coach Ward has spent the last five years at Carmel High School teaching classes such as zoology, botany, genetics, biology, and biomedical science. He enjoys playing video games, reading sci-fi/fantasy books, raising his two children, and taking dad naps.