Kenna Zhang Wins $5,000 Alzheimer's Scholarship After 3 AI Detection Projects
Updated
Updated · WTVD-TV · Aug 23
Kenna Zhang Wins $5,000 Alzheimer's Scholarship After 3 AI Detection Projects
3 articles · Updated · WTVD-TV · Aug 23
Summary
$5,000 went to Cary graduate Kenna Zhang after she won first place in the video category of the Alzheimer's Foundation of America's 2026 Teen Alzheimer's Awareness Scholarship Contest.
Three high-school research projects drove that recognition, with Zhang studying AI bias in Alzheimer's diagnosis, tools for rural clinics with limited data, and a model combining image and tabular medical data.
Her work grew out of her grandmother's stage-three Alzheimer's diagnosis, which Zhang said came after early warning signs were mistaken for normal aging.
More than 1,400 students entered the 2026 contest, which awarded over $73,000 to 96 students nationwide; Zhang will attend MIT this fall and plans to keep working on early detection and access.