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We’re delighted to introduce our newest Barron Prize young heroes!

This year’s winners and runners-up represent our 25th class of exceptional young leaders who are changing the world in creative ways. They’re protecting our oceans and biodiversity, supporting individuals with disabilities, inventing new technologies to treat disease, and tackling plastic pollution, among myriad other initiatives. They are doing so with great courage and determination, deep compassion, and generosity of spirit. These young heroes inspire us by their example and remind us of the power we each hold to make a difference. We’re so proud to honor them and to welcome them to our Barron Prize family!

2025 WINNERS

Cynthia Zhang with a monarch butterfly in one hand and monarch tags in the other.

Aadi Kulkarni, age 17, of New Hampshire, who founded TechPals to teach digital skills to senior citizens while fostering intergenerational connections. His team of youth volunteers has helped more than 5,000 seniors learn to text, use FaceTime, and recognize scams, among other digital skills. 

Alaina Zhang, age 17, of Rhode Island, who created Harvesting Change to explore native seaweed’s potential as an eco-friendly and affordable method to absorb excess nitrogen along Rhode Island’s coast, where nitrogen overload causes algal blooms that deplete oxygen and threaten marine life.

Anisha Dhoot, age 16, of Oregon, whose Smart Carbon Recycling innovation supports sustainable agriculture and helps mitigate climate change by combining carbon sequestration, seaweed-based fertilizer, biochar, and an AI-based machine learning model that aids crop selection.

April Surac, age 17, of Florida, who founded NeuraSensa to engineer interactive textile art installations that integrate layered fabrics, embedded sensors, and responsive elements to support neurodivergent individuals and those with sensory processing differences.

Asa Miller, age 18, of New York, who created ¡Viva el Vivero! (Long Live the Nursery!), an initiative that provides training, manpower, record keeping, and supplies to help communities in Cuba restore their threatened coral reefs. 

Carter Medved, age 18, of New York, who created three youth-led sustainability initiatives — CrushCarbon, EnviroVols, and WattSherpa — to help local residents take action to reduce emissions, volunteer together, and better understand climate solutions.

Cynthia Zhang, age 17, of New York, who founded Monarchs Matter to combat biodiversity loss and climate change by sharing the wonder of the monarch butterfly. She supports youth in raising, tagging, and releasing monarchs and has created 15 monarch waystations across 34 acres.

Ethan Hua, age 17, of California, who founded the H.O.P.E. (Help Our Planet Earth) school uniform recycling program to reduce landfill waste, ease families’ financial burdens, and promote sustainability. His program has collected and redistributed over 9,500 uniforms, saving families an estimated $135,000 in clothing costs.

Gia Providente, age 8, of New York, who is helping protect endangered diamondback terrapin turtles on the South Shore of Long Island by designing awareness signs and working with her Town Board to install them in local bayfront parks.

Matthew Vila, age 16, of Florida, who founded Harmony Hugs to lead a team of passionate student musicians in providing free weekly instrumental music lessons to 70 local youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities. 

Nicolina Pappas, age 14, of Illinois, who founded Nicolina’s Turtle Co. to reduce plastic use and encourage conservation. Her Skip the Plastic campaign supports communities across Illinois and Iowa in reducing their reliance on single-use plastics.

Aadi Kulkarni helping an elderly blind man set up a click-to-speech accessibility feature.

Srihan Sankepalle, age 15, of Michigan, who has developed a nontoxic, scalable system to remove microplastics from rivers, lakes, and coastlines that costs 90% less than commercial systems and requires no power supply beyond UV light.

Vick and William Tan, ages 16 and 14, of Minnesota, who co-founded Fish Hut to support mental health in youth by promoting time outdoors and connection through fishing. Their nonprofit hosts free fishing events and places Fish Hut boxes of loaner fishing equipment in underserved communities across numerous states. 

Vivian Liu, age 16, of Texas, who founded Origami For Good, a global nonprofit that has inspired more than 7,000 volunteers to create over 825,000 pieces of origami for people in hospitals, nursing homes, and children’s centers around the world.

Zinia Khattar, age 17, of California, who has designed a novel gene-set profiling algorithm to explore specific cellular mechanisms that can be regulated to alleviate mitochondrial dysfunction — the root of many diseases.

2025 RUNNERS-UP

Maya Puterman delivers a meal to a community fridge in New York City. 

Anirudh Rao, age 12, of Colorado, who is passionate about designing solutions to problems that are worsening due to climate change. His early tornado detection system called Revere could increase the average warning time from 13 to 40 minutes.

Anthony Woo, age 17, of Florida, who co-founded Torus, a free curbside composting pickup program that has served over 500 households and diverted more than 200,000 pounds of food waste from landfills.

Daniel Thomas, age 17, of Texas, who founded LitterScout to combat plastic pollution and has mobilized thousands of volunteers across dozens of cities in removing more than 42,000 pounds of litter.

Giuliana Demma, age 15, of New Jersey, who founded G’s Giving Gowns, a nonprofit that creates custom hospital gowns free of charge for children fighting cancer. She and her team of 500 volunteers have sewn and distributed more than 2,200 gowns.

Kavin Ramadoss, age 16, of Oregon, who created a novel, low-cost biocomputational framework to find new drugs to prevent malaria, which has become resistant to the four major drugs currently targeting it.

Maya Puterman, age 18, of New York, who founded Fresh Opportunities to help students start food recovery clubs at their schools. She has guided 154 student volunteers in packaging and donating more than 11,000 free meals to local shelters and community fridges. 

Rabani Bajaj, age 16, of Texas, who founded Seva-Art to help feed the hungry while creating a platform for students to showcase and sell their artwork. Her nonprofit has raised more than $15,000 for the local food bank through the sale of student-created art. 

Sophie Zeng, age 17, of California, who founded Project ARISE to restore biodiversity, largely through an app she developed that identifies invasive plant species and provides instructions for removing them.

Tina Jin, age 14, of California, who has engineered an effective, affordable, and sustainable water filtration method that uses post-consumed animal bones and could greatly help under-resourced communities around the world. 

Yashwin Adusumilli, age 16, of Florida, who created Marine Guard biofilters which use a non-invasive species of seaweed to combat nutrient pollution and destructive algal blooms in South Florida’s lakes.