California State Science & Engineering Fair

Steve Menkus Environmental Leadership Award

The West Coast Section is a proud sponsor of several awards at the California State Science and Engineering Fair. Specifically, the Section has sponsored the Steve Menkus Environmental Leadership Awards in the Environmental Engineering and Environmental Sciences categories at the fair since 2016. For further information, please contact [email protected]. 

2026 Awards  Recipients and Judges

RECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING EARTH & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES, JUNIOR DIVISION

Judges: Richard Baldwin & Simin Mehrabani

Award Recipient: Arya Bhatt

Project Title: Context Aware Real Time Air Quality Prediction Using Machine Learning

RECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING EARTH & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES, SENIOR DIVISION

Judges: Lauren Godinez & Richard Countess

Award Recipient: Roshan Saxena

Project Title: Hybrid Spatiotemporal Framework for Marsh Climate Forcing: Biogeochemical Thresholds, Flux Prediction, Site Optimization

RECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING, JUNIOR DIVISION

Judges: Odette Alsen & Don Price

Award Recipient: Shreyas Garg

Project Title: Electrostatic Cyclone: The Ultimate Indoor Pollution & Duster Buster

RECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING, SENIOR DIVISION

Judges: Azar Dabiri & Tran Vo

Award Recipient: Aidan Peng

Project Title: Integrating Furfural Production and Pyrolysis for Enhanced Biomass Valorization: a Novel Biorefinery Design

2025 Awards  Recipients and Judges

RECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING EARTH & ENVIRONMENT: AIR/WATER PROJECT, JUNIOR DIVISION

Judges: Odette Alsen & Richard Countess

Award Recipient: Stella Bourgeois

Project Title: Is My House Radioactive?

RECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING EARTH & ENVIRONMENT: AIR/WATER PROJECT, SENIOR DIVISION

Judges: Odette Alsen & Richard Countess

Award Recipient: Lea Segal

Project Title: Mathematical Modeling of Salt Marsh Surface Seawater Acidity

RECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING: JUNIOR DIVISION

Judges: Patty Quan-Handley & Chuck Handley

Award Recipients: Serena Yuan & Maggie Sun

Project Title: Utilizing Food Waste to Produce Biodegradable Packaging Material

RECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING SENIOR DIVISION

Judges: Simin Mehrabani & Tran Vo

Award Recipient: Harleen Vik

Project Title: Wax, Water, and Phase Change: Employing Phase Change Materials for Compact Thermal Energy Storage in Residential Heating Systems

2024 Awards  Recipients and Judges

RECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING PROJECT, JUNIOR DIVISION

Judges: Odette Alsen & Tejasree Ganapa

Award Recipients: Adhiban Arulselvan & Vishwanathan Vinayagam

Project Title: GridPatrol: AI-Powered Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for Wildfire Prevention

RECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE PROJECT, SENIOR DIVISION

Judges: Simin Mehrabani & Tran Vo

Award Recipient: Remi Morgan 

Project Title: Evaluating the Impact of Glycerin Concentrations on the Mechanical Resilience and Tensile Strength of Sustainable Biofabrics

2023 Awards  Recipients and Judges

Judges: Bhaskar A. Chandan, Tran Vo, Odette Alsen, & Tejasree Ganapa

RECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING PROJECT, JUNIOR DIVISION

Award Recipient: Jeanelle Dao

Project Title: FilterEye: Energy-Saving Embedded Electronic Device to Alert User to Change Air Filter

Award Recipient: Leonna Torosyan

Project Title: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Rethinking Food Waste with BSFL

RECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE PROJECT, SENIOR DIVISION

Award Recipient: Ghosh Anwesha

Project Title: Arduino Monitored Biophotovoltaic Algal Microbial Fuel Cell with Conveyor Belt Cathode Biofilm Modification for Heavy Metal Removal

HONORABLE MENTION - ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING PROJECT, JUNIOR DIVISION

Award Recipient: Julianne Luna

Project Title: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Rethinking Food Waste with BSFL

2022 Awards  Recipients and Judges

Judges: Bhaskar A. Chandan, Simin Mehrabani & Tejasree Ganapa

RECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING PROJECT, JUNIOR DIVISION

Award Recipients: Nandana Maheskumar, Laasya Pandravada, & Sara Yoshida

Project Title: EEVF: Energy Efficient Vertical Farming

ECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE PROJECT, SENIOR DIVISION

Award Recipient: Meera Iyer

Project Title: What material among natural zeolites, synthetic zeolites, and activated carbon, with and without electrical fields, and curcumin adsorbs the most amount of methane

2021 Awards  Recipients and Judges

RECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING PROJECT, JUNIOR DIVISION

Judges: Bhaskar A. Chandan & Tejasree Ganapa

Award Recipient: Sowmya Sundar

Project Title: Reusing greywater - Using natural materials to remove contaminants in greywater

RECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE PROJECT, SENIOR DIVISION

Judges: Jiachen Zhang & Simin Mehrabani

Award Recipient: Rohan Gulati

Project Title: Wildfire Distance Estimation Using Machine Learning Models Based on Temporal Meteorological Data

RECOGNITION AWARD TO OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING PROJECT, SENIOR DIVISION

Judges: Sam Wang & Edmund Golpashin

Award Recipient: Bella Rose Schremmer

Project Title:  Clean Coastal Energy by a Novel Piston-Buoy Rack and Pinion Wave Energy Converter System

2019 Awards Recipients and Judges

2018 Science Fair Recipients and Judges