Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District
Project Awards 2026
Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship
| School | Teacher | Student | Award | Title | Gr | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Altos High School | Ryan | Carter | Kai Jacob | Etkin | 2nd Award, Biological Science and Engineering Category | Functional and structural MRI correlates of reading comprehension abilities in children and adolescents (Biological Science and Engineering) | 11 |
| Darren | Dressen | Aaron | Bai | 2nd Award, Biological Science and Engineering Category | Potentially Characterizing ASD Severity Using Early EEG/fMRI Signals and Multimodal Machine Learning (Biological Science and Engineering) | 11 | |
| Mark | Beliaev | 1st Award, Biological Science and Engineering Category | Designing Peptidomimetics to Inhibit TRBD-TERC Binding in Telomerase (Biological Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Julia Gabriela | Bita | Certificate of Achievement + Letter from Sponsor (regarding $25 gift card redeemable online + internship opportunity with ASEI Industry Partner + free 1 year membership to ASEI), ASEI Award | Calcium Phosphate Coatings for Stabilizing TiO? Nanoparticles in Marine Environments (Physical Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Jason Carpenter | Byrne | Certificate of Achievement + Letter from Sponsor (regarding $25 gift card redeemable online + internship opportunity with ASEI Industry Partner + free 1 year membership to ASEI), ASEI Award | Calcium Phosphate Coatings for Stabilizing TiO? Nanoparticles in Marine Environments (Physical Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Luk-Lun | Chan | 2nd Award, Biological Science and Engineering Category | Investigating the Association of SWI/SNF with the Transcription Elongation Complex (Biological Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Logan Edward Yang | Chatwin | Honorable Mention, Biological Science and Engineering Category | Targeting TREM2: In Silico Design of a Small-Molecule Agonist (Biological Science and Engineering) | 11 | |||
| Maya | Dutta | 2nd Award, Physical Science and Engineering Category | Design, Synthesis, and In Silico Evaluation of Quinoline-Based Small Molecules Targeting the Nurr1 Ligand-Binding Domain (Physical Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Tom | Freda-Eskenazi | Honorable Mention, Physical Science and Engineering Category | Computational Screening and Fabrication of Waste-Derived Calcium-Based Perovskite Solar Cells (Physical Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Cyrus | Ghaffari | 1st Award, Biological Science and Engineering Category | Designing Peptidomimetics to Inhibit TRBD-TERC Binding in Telomerase (Biological Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Jisoo | Hur | 2nd Award, Biological Science and Engineering Category | Potentially Characterizing ASD Severity Using Early EEG/fMRI Signals and Multimodal Machine Learning (Biological Science and Engineering) | 11 | |||
| Edwin | Jin | 1st Award, Physical Science and Engineering Category | Reinforcement Learning in the Modeling and Optimization of Diels-Alder Reactions (Physical Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Mihika | Kamat | 1st Award, Physical Science and Engineering Category | Rapid Discovery of Robot Designs via Model Predictive Control (Physical Science and Engineering) | 11 | |||
| Kartik Ryan | Karpenko | 2nd Award, Physical Science and Engineering Category | Comparing Cold & Icy and Warm & Wet Mars Paleoclimates Through Landform Evolution Modeling (Physical Science and Engineering) | 11 | |||
| Rishi Kesh | Khandelwal | Honorable Mention, Biological Science and Engineering Category | Targeting TREM2: In Silico Design of a Small-Molecule Agonist (Biological Science and Engineering) | 11 | |||
| Matthew | Kim | 2nd Award, Physical Science and Engineering Category | Programmable Stiffness Regions on Metamaterials with Reconfigurable Behavior (Physical Science and Engineering) | 11 | |||
| Roshan | Mahesh | 1st Award, Physical Science and Engineering Category | Reinforcement Learning in the Modeling and Optimization of Diels-Alder Reactions (Physical Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Riya | Mehrotra | 1st Award, Physical Science and Engineering Category | The Repelling Propellers Problem: Optimizing Energy Configurations in Orbital Patterns (Physical Science and Engineering) | 11 | |||
| Dylan | Po | Honorable Mention, Biological Science and Engineering Category | Reducing MRI Scan Time and Improving Image Quality Through Image Domain Reconstruction with U-Nets (Biological Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Sarika | Rajan | Certificate of Achievement + Letter from Sponsor (regarding $25 gift card redeemable online + internship opportunity with ASEI Industry Partner + free 1 year membership to ASEI), ASEI Award | Calcium Phosphate Coatings for Stabilizing TiO? Nanoparticles in Marine Environments (Physical Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Sophia | Stavrakos | 2nd Award, Physical Science and Engineering Category | Design, Synthesis, and In Silico Evaluation of Quinoline-Based Small Molecules Targeting the Nurr1 Ligand-Binding Domain (Physical Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Shouyo Ka | Tan | Exceptional Merit, Certificate (all Grades), SPV Market Research | Observing the Effects of UV Radiation and Heat on Polymer-Coated Solar Sails (Physical Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Harry | Tang | Honorable Mention, Biological Science and Engineering Category | Reducing MRI Scan Time and Improving Image Quality Through Image Domain Reconstruction with U-Nets (Biological Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Ambar | Vig | Exceptional Merit, Certificate (all Grades), SPV Market Research | Observing the Effects of UV Radiation and Heat on Polymer-Coated Solar Sails (Physical Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Victoria | Johnson | Maxim | Asmar | $50 and Certificate of Achievement, Kerry Veenstra Awards | Leveraging Machine Learning to Examine Racial Bias in Crime News Coverage (Physical Science and Engineering) | 11 | |
| Jack Titus | Boublik-Whiteley | 2nd Award, Biological Science and Engineering Category | Exploring the Synergistic Effects of Vitamins D and E on Reducing Hexokinase II Expression in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (Biological Science and Engineering) | 11 | |||
| Arjun | Mukherjee | $50 and Certificate of Achievement, Kerry Veenstra Awards | Leveraging Machine Learning to Examine Racial Bias in Crime News Coverage (Physical Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Jayalakshmi | Raffill | Honorable Mention, Physical Science and Engineering Category | Computational optimization of enzymes for a polypropylene degrading enzyme system (Physical Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Neil Theodore Jimenez | Santos | 2nd Award, Biological Science and Engineering Category | Exploring the Synergistic Effects of Vitamins D and E on Reducing Hexokinase II Expression in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (Biological Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Sahana | Srinivasan | Honorable Mention, Biological Science and Engineering Category | Increasing Cocoa Yields: Technical Approaches to Pollinator Classification with YOLO (Biological Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| GR 9-12: Third place, $50 and trophy, Richardson Environmental Awards | |||||||
| Manxuan | Zhang | Honorable Mention, Physical Science and Engineering Category | Computational optimization of enzymes for a polypropylene degrading enzyme system (Physical Science and Engineering) | 11 | |||
| Scott | Murray | Sarp | Akalin | Honorable Mention, RRI Physical Science and Engineering Category | Monitoring Sand Boils to Prevent Levee Failures using Machine Learning (RRI Physical Science and Engineering) | 10 | |
| Arush | Garg | Honorable Mention, Physical Science and Engineering Category | Biomimetic Semantic Communication Framework for Wildfire Resilience in Rural Communities (Physical Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Avni | Rajagopal | Certificate of Achievement + Letter from Sponsor (regarding $25 gift card redeemable online + internship opportunity with ASEI Industry Partner + free 1 year membership to ASEI), ASEI Award | Applying Token Reduction Strategies To Reduce Reasoning Inefficiency In Agentic LLM System Reasoning (Physical Science and Engineering) | 12 | |||
| Caroline | Yu | Honorable Mention, Physical Science and Engineering Category | Biomimetic Semantic Communication Framework for Wildfire Resilience in Rural Communities (Physical Science and Engineering) | 11 | |||
| Jacob | Russo | Cassia Dyer | Seem | Grand Prize Alternate - Physical Sciences - Qualified for California Science & Engineering Fair (CSEF), Santa Clara Valley Science & Engineering Fair Assn - Board of Directors Awards - High School | AI-Driven Methodology for Detection and Mapping of Sargassum horneri in Monterey Bay (Physical Science and Engineering) | 9 | |
| $100, Robby Beyers Innovative Solutions Awards | |||||||
| 1st Award, Physical Science and Engineering Category | |||||||
| Cynthia | Zhang | Grand Prize Alternate - Physical Sciences - Qualified for California Science & Engineering Fair (CSEF), Santa Clara Valley Science & Engineering Fair Assn - Board of Directors Awards - High School | AI-Driven Methodology for Detection and Mapping of Sargassum horneri in Monterey Bay (Physical Science and Engineering) | 9 | |||
| $100, Robby Beyers Innovative Solutions Awards | |||||||
| 1st Award, Physical Science and Engineering Category | |||||||
| David | Talcott | Amanda | Wang | 1st Award, Biological Science and Engineering Category | Investigating the Relationship between Pre-Ictal Heart Rate Variability and Seizure Duration in Focal Epilepsy (Biological Science and Engineering) | 11 | |
| Mountain View High School | Ly | Nguyen | Ojas | Desai | 2nd Award, Biological Science and Engineering Category | OratorSync: Exploring the Types, Causes, and Treatments of Stuttering and Developing AI Tools to Overcome it (Biological Science and Engineering) | 10 |
| Sukhraj | Sohal | Adrina | Esmaeilpour | Honorable Mention, Biological Science and Engineering Category | Anti-Microbial Properties of Hydrogels vs Hydrogel-Coated Sutures in Wound Healing Model (Biological Science and Engineering) | 10 | |
| Stephen | Widmark | Aryan | Khanna | Honorable Mention, Physical Science and Engineering Category | Predicting and Analyzing Quenching Rates for Low-Redshift Galaxies With Machine Learning (Physical Science and Engineering) | 11 | |
| Christine | Yow | Christopher | Shin | 2nd Award, RRI Biological Science and Engineering Category | Quantitative optimization of cancer-specific synthetic biomarker induction for breath-based cancer detection (RRI Biological Science and Engineering) | 10 | |