Huxley Westemeier '26 and Evan Morris '26 take home awards in International Science and Engineering Competition

Four SPA student-scientists, Deling Chen '25, Evan Morris '26, Maren Overgaard '26, and Huxley Westemeier '26, all competed as finalists at last week's Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Columbus, Ohio. All four students developed their projects as part of SPA's Advanced Science Research or Advanced Technology Projects classes and earned a spot at the ISEF finals through their exceptional performances at the regional or state science fair.

ISEF is the world’s largest international pre-college science competition. Chen, Morris, Overgaard, and Westemeier were among 1600 high school students to qualify for the ISEF competition, which was held in Columbus, May 10-16, 2025. ISEF finalists present their original research to judging teams made up of university faculty and scientists, industrial engineers and scientists, representatives of private and federal research centers and agencies, medical researchers, and post-doctoral fellows.

In the special awards ceremony, Huxley Westemeier won an unprecedented five awards: Air Force Research Laboratory ($750), The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence ($1500), HP ($5000), Midwest Microelectronics Consortium ($3000), and Taiwan International Science Fair (a fully-funded trip to Taiwan to compete in the fair). At the Grand Awards ceremony, Westemeier was awarded second place in the Systems Software category and Morris was also awarded second place in the Cellular and Molecular Biology category. Both awards carry a prize of $2400 and put them among the top high school scientists in the world.

"These four student researchers should be so proud of their work this year. They represented our research program admirably, met peers from around the state, country, and the world, communicated their research to judges that are experts in their fields, while taking advantage of all that a week at ISEF has to offer," says ASR faculty Karissa Baker, "Deling, Evan, Maren and Huxley represent the largest group of projects that SPA has ever sent to ISEF, and the awards that Huxley and Evan received are truly unprecedented. They are settting the bar incredibly high for our program going forward!"