Limerick young scientist winner marks another big win in Poland

A HIGH-ACHIEVING Limerick student scooped the prestigious second-place prize at the EU Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS) in Katowice, Poland.

Seán O’Sullivan from Coláiste Chiaráin in Croom won the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition (BTYSTE) ealrier this year with his project ‘VerifyMe: A new approach to authorship attribution in the post-ChatGPT era’. This past week, to add to his growing list of accomplishments, he was awarded the second-place prize at the EUCYS competition in Poland – a competition his big BTYSTE win qualified him for.

Seán’s second place win saw him take home a prize of €5,000. He was also awarded the 2025 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair Prize, which includes a research trip to Ohio.

Competing against over 250 students from across Europe, as well as guest projects from the United States and beyond, Seán’s project considered the challenges of author verification in the context of the significant improvements in large language models (LLMS) like ChatGPT, as the line between human-written and AI-generated text has blurred.

Speaking after his win, Seán said that he was “thrilled” to take home the second place ribbon.

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“It was an honour to travel to Katowice, Poland, and represent Ireland at one of the world’s most prestigious science fairs,” the high-achieving sixth year student said.

“With so many fascinating, important projects on display, I am absolutely thrilled to take home the second place prize at the competition.”

Mari Cahalane, head of the BTYSTE said that  “as Ireland’s representative at the EUCYS, Seán is an incredible advocate for Ireland’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) sector, and showcases the very best of the talent that comes from the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition each year.

“Here at BT Ireland, we are all incredibly proud of Sean’s achievements we would encourage as many students as possible to get their entries in for the BTYSTE 2025 before the deadline for applications closes at the end of the month,” Ms Cahalane said.