Some of the best - LWSD students stand out among 1,700 competitors at global science fair

At the 2026 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the world’s largest pre-college STEM competition, more than 1,700 top high school researchers from over 65 countries gathered in Phoenix, Arizona, May 9-15 to present cutting-edge projects and compete for more than $7 million in awards. Against this highly competitive global backdrop, students from Lake Washington School District (LWSD) distinguished themselves across multiple disciplines, earning top placements for research spanning computational biology, advanced materials, physics and medical science.

A total of five students from three LWSD high schools, Tesla STEM High School, Redmond High School and Eastlake High School, earned Grand Awards, including one second-place finish, two third-place finishes and two fourth-place recognitions. Their projects spanned a wide range of fields, from computational biology and translational medical science to materials science and physics, reflecting both the interdisciplinary nature of the competition and the depth of research emerging from the district. Together, these results highlight LWSD’s presence at a global competition that showcases the most advanced and impactful student-led scientific work in the world.

Below is a list of the winners from LWSD along with the categories they competed in, the award they received and the name of their project:

TRANSLATIONAL MEDICAL SCIENCE

Second Award of $2,400

TMED084 – Unified Transcriptomic Melanoma Reference Map Reveals Predictive Molecular Signatures for Patient Prognosis

• Omkar Phadnis, Redmond High School

MATERIALS SCIENCE

Third Award of $1,200

MATS063 – BananaBaby: Musa spp. Anisotropic and Parallel Venation Biomimetic Neonatal Incubator Liner Preventing Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs) in Developing Countries

• Vedika Devarajan, Redmond High School
  • Also the winner of a Non-Trivial Fellowship Scholarship

COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY AND BIOINFORMATICS

Third Award of $1,200

CBIO021 – GlueForge: A Generalizable Pipeline for Molecular Glue Discovery via Multi-Stage Screening and Geometry-Aware Ternary Learning, Demonstrated at the FBW7–MYC Interface

• Adhrith Vutukuri, Tesla STEM High School

Fourth Award of $600

MATS022 – Polydimethylsiloxane-Coated Polysaccharide Hydrogels for Sustainable Oil Spill Remediation

• Sanjay Srinivasan, Eastlake High School

PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

Fourth Award of $600

PHYS053 — SPINO: A Physics-Informed Fourier Neural Operator Surrogate for Accelerating Schrodinger-Poisson Simulation of Nanoscale Gate-All-Around Transistors

• Aashrith Pisupati, Tesla STEM High School