51 CA Teens Awarded $2,000 In 2025 Regeneron Science Talent Search

CALIFORNIA — The Society for Science has selected the top 300 scholars in the Regeneron Science Talent Search 2025, touted as the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors.

Each of the 300 scholars, 51 here in California, will be awarded $2,000 and their schools will be awarded $2,000 for each enrolled scholar. Several California high schools have multiple scholars.

The next step in the competition comes Thursday, when the top 40 finalists are announced.

US citizens living abroad are eligible to apply. Nearly 2,500 entrants from 795 high schools across 48 states, American Samoa, Guam, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and 14 other countries entered the competition.

Scholars were chosen based on their outstanding research, leadership skills, community involvement, commitment to academics, creativity in asking scientific questions and exceptional promise as STEM leaders demonstrated through the submission of their original, independent research projects, essays and recommendations.

"Congratulations to the 300 scholars in this year’s Regeneron Science Talent Search," said Maya Ajmera, President and CEO, Society for Science and Executive Publisher, Science News. "With a record-breaking number of applications, these exceptional young scientists and engineers represent the best in the nation. We are thrilled to celebrate their ingenuity, hard work, and passion for STEM."

Now in its 103rd year, past winners have gone on to receive Nobel Prizes, MacArthur Fellowships, National Medals of Science, National Medals of Technology and Innovation, Breakthrough Prize, Fields Medal, and more.

This year, research projects cover topics from Medicine and Health to Computer Science and more.

"Congratulations to the Regeneron Science Talent Search top 300 scholars, who demonstrate the extraordinary potential of nurtured STEM talent," said Christina Chan, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Regeneron. "Our long-standing partnership with Society for Science is a cornerstone of our commitment to elevate these future scientific leaders, and we look forward to seeing how their discoveries will tackle global challenges and help improve our world."

On Jan. 23, 40 of the 300 scholars will be named Regeneron Science Talent Search finalists. The finalists will then compete for more than $1.8 million in awards during a week-long competition in Washington, D.C., taking place March 6-12, 2025.

Here are this year's $2,000 winners from California.

2025 California Regeneron Science Talent Search Top Scholars

• Logan Mars Brown, Age: 18, High Tech High North County, CA, Project Title: Closed-Loop Electrochemical CNC Machining for the Democratization of Metal Fabrication
• Sonya Chamberlain, Age: 18, Dublin High School, CA, Project Title: Whole Exome Sequencing Analysis Highlights the Need for Routine Genetic Screening of Type 1 Diabetes Patients for Monogenic Diabetes
• Vrishank Chandrasekhar, Age: 17, Lynbrook High School, CA, Project Title: Discovery of a Novel Digital Biomarker for Early Pan-Cancer Survival and Recurrence Prediction via Free-Text Clinical Narratives
• Trevor Chen, Age: 17, Westview School, CA, Project Title: Enabling Ultra-Broadband High-Efficiency Gratings for Single-Cycle Infrared Lasers
• Benjamin Art Chung, Age: 18, Thousand Oaks High School, CA, Project Title: The Synergistic Effect of Omega-3 Fatty Acids (DHA and EPA) and Zinc Picolinate on Traumatic Brain Injury in Galleria mellonella
• Rohan Das, Age: 17, BASIS Independent Silicon Valley, CA, Project Title: The Warped Tensor Product of Frobenius Algebras
• Aditi Nikhil Deshpande, Age: 17, Amador Valley High School, CA, Project Title: Assessing the Role of Matrix Metalloproteinases and Classical Complement System in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Using Bulk RNA Analysis in Acinar-to-Ductal Metaplasia
• Aaryan Doshi, Age: 18, Monta Vista High School, CA, Project Title: Discovery of Properties of Atmospheric Aerosols for Targeted Climate Control via Variational Autoencoders
• Pauline Victoria Allasas Estrada, Age: 18, Clovis North High School, CA, Project Title: Rapid Detection of Acetolactate Synthetase Inhibitor Resistant Weeds Utilizing Novel Full-Spectrum Imaging and a Bayesian-Optimized Hyperparameter-Tuned Convolutional Neural Network
• Victoria Fang, Age: 18, University High School, CA, Project Title: A Novel AI- and Robotics-Backed Smart Sign Language Interpreter (ASLBot), Eliminating the Barriers of Communication for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Individuals
• Sarah Rumei Gao, Age: 18, Canyon Crest Academy, CA, Project Title: From Trash to Treasure: Fighting Desertification With Sustainable Soil-Amending Hydrogels Synthesized From Food Waste
• Adithya Giri, Age: 18, Homestead High School, CA, Project Title: ConvFormer: Introducing Inductive Biases To Improve the Performance of Transformers on Small Datasets
• Ishaan Gupta, Age: 17, Dublin High School, CA, Project Title: SharkHI: A Novel Pipeline for Health Index Calculation of Carcharodon carcharias
• Miles Hexun, Age: 18, University High School, CA, Project Title: Engineering of Formate Dehydrogenase for Recycling of Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, a Noncanonical Redox Cofactor
• Leonardo Jia, Age: 17, Saratoga High School, CA, Project Title: Machine Learning Models for Regional Diabetes Prevalence Prediction Using Socioeconomic and Lifestyle Factors With Applications in the Diabetes Economic Ecosystem
• Aditi Kiran, Age: 17, BASIS Independent Fremont, CA, Project Title: The Effect of Copper Aluminum Bimetallic Metal Organic Framework-Based Electrode on the Energy Stored in a Supercapacitor
• Samhita Konduri, Age: 18, Palo Alto High School, CA, Project Title: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Determinants Influencing Sexual Assault Crime Rates Across the United States Using Large Language Models, Machine Learning and Statistics
• Theodore Kratter, Age: 17, Polytechnic School, CA, Project Title: Novel Food Safety Test for the Rapid and Point-of-Care Detection of Peanut Allergens: Improving Quality of Life for Those With Severe Food Allergies
• Victor Li, Age: 18, University High School, CA, Project Title: Allo-DiffHopping: A Computational Approach for Allosteric Scaffold Hopping Using Conditional E(3) Equivariant Diffusion Model in Drug Design
• Andrew Yuxuan Liang, Age: 17, The Harker School, CA, Project Title: An Intelligent Bee Health Assessment System Using a Cross Attention-Based Multimodal Neural Network for Visual and Audio Signals
• Justin Yi-Ting Lin, Age: 17, San Marino High School, CA, Project Title: Effects of Alveolar Bone Grafts vs. Orthognathic Surgery on Cleft Palate Speech Nasalance: A Meta-Analysis
• Rivka Lipkovitz, Age: 18, Proof School, CA, Project Title: The Differential Effects of Strict Voter Identification Laws on Election Type and Adoption Timing
• Nandana Madhukara, Age: 18, Canyon Crest Academy, CA, Project Title: A Novel Approach to Modeling the Effect of Protein Crowding on Cellular Membrane Shape
• Sajeev Magesh, Age: 18, Dublin High School, CA, Project Title: IntelliTill AI — Combating Climate Change Through AI-Driven Automated Tilling and Fertilizer Optimization
• Skyler Mao, Age: 17, Saratoga High School, CA, Project Title: Relating Wave and Particle Statistics in Pilot-Wave Hydrodynamics
• Shiv Mehrotra-Varma, Age: 18, Clovis North High School, CA, Project Title: Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Are at Elevated Risk of Developing New Hypertension and Chronic Kidney Disease Following COVID-19 Infections
• Hriday Meka, Age: 17, North Hollywood High School, CA, Project Title: Selective NF-κB Inhibition in Acute Myeloid Leukemia Using a Novel Decoy Oligonucleotide: Evaluating Monotherapeutic and Polytherapeutic Approaches
• Meenakshi Nair, Age: 17, Mission San Jose High School, CA, Project Title: Iterative Informal Settlement Detection and Mapping on VHR Satellite Imagery
• Matteo Paz, Age: 18, Pasadena High School, CA, Project Title: The VarWISE All-Sky Infrared Variability Survey — Classification of 1.9 Million Astronomical Objects Into 10 Classes
• Yash Ranjith, Age: 18, Westmont High School, CA, Project Title: Modeling Pollution Spread With Obstructions Using Physics-Informed Neural Networks
• Charlotte Ava Rosario, Age: 17, The Nueva School, CA, Project Title: Examining Brain Structure in Relation to Mood and Anxiety in Pubertal Transgender and Cisgender Youth
• Praneel Shah, Age: 18, Monta Vista High School, CA, Project Title: Controlled Nutrient Delivery With Chitosan-Alginate Nanoparticles To Promote Seed Germination and Stress Resilience in Glycine max
• Ava Nadia Shvartsman, Age: 18, Fairmont Preparatory Academy, CA, Project Title: Analysis of PFOS and PFOA With Varying Salinity and Electrical Fields Using Classical Molecular Dynamics Simulations
• Joe Francisco Smith, Age: 17, Stanford University Online High School, CA, Project Title: Astrometric Binary Classification via Artificial Neural Networks
• Stella Su, Age: 18, Henry M. Gunn High School, CA, Project Title: Combining Single-Cell GPT and Gene Network Modeling To Infer the Roles of Critical Regulators of Cardiac Differentiation
• Mengnan Sun, Age: 18, Cosumnes Oaks High School, CA, Project Title: Sustainable Hydrogel Beads for Removal and Recovery of Phosphate From Wastewater
• Aliana Tang, Age: 17, Piedmont High School, CA, Project Title: Network Method for Building a Sample-Specific Glycan Database for N-Linked Glycosylation From MS/MS Data
• Varun Thvar, Age: 17, The Harker School, CA, Project Title: Predicting Childhood Trauma With Functional Connectivity fMRI Imaging Using Machine Learning and Analyzing Psychopathological Outcomes
• Angelina Tseng, Age: 17, Santa Catalina School, CA, Project Title: AI-Powered Magnetic Inspection Robot for Advanced Structural Health Monitoring of Ferromagnetic Structures
• Aarush Vailaya, Age: 17, The Harker School, CA, Project Title: Adjacent Cycle-Chains Are e-positive
• Sindhu Vemulapalli, Age: 17, Vista del Lago High School, CA, Project Title: Discovery of Small Molecule TLR4 Inhibitors as Potential Therapy for Alzheimer’s Disease
• Jackie Wei, Age: 18, Piedmont Hills High School, CA, Project Title: Optimizing Transformer-Based Models for Radiation Estimation at High Energy Accelerator Facility
• Ashton Yoon, Age: 17, Chadwick School, CA, Project Title: Development of a Next-Generation 3D Printed Cranial Remodeling Helmet With Memory Function and Integrated Pressure Sensors for Correcting Head Deformities
• Samuel Yuan, Age: 17, Homestead High School, CA, Project Title: Diffusion Models for Conditional Generation of Hypothetical New Families of Superconductors
• Jason Zhang, Age: 17, Del Norte High School, CA, Project Title: Noninvasive Multi-Cancer Detection Using Blood-Based Cell-Free MicroRNAs
• Elisa Zhang, Age: 17, Dougherty Valley High School, CA, Project Title: Patching Multi-Location Software Bugs: A Multi-Agent Large Language Model Framework for Automated Program Repair
• Timothy Zhang, Age: 17, Dougherty Valley High School, CA, Project Title: Predicting Cognitive Progression and Quantifying Clinical Factor Effects: A Temporal Dual-Model Pipeline and Cluster-Based Analysis
• Zirui Zhu, Age: 17, Webb School of California, CA, Project Title: Highly Flexible Ankle Joint Lower Limb Exoskeleton for Hemiplegic Patients: Integrating Assistive and Rehabilitation Functions
• Minghao Zou, Age: 18, Valley Christian High School, CA, Project Title: A New Particle Pusher With Hadronic Interactions for Modeling Multimessenger Emission From Compact Objects