Today’s science fairs are a lot more than homemade volcanoes and blue ribbons.

Top competitors in the Georgia Science and Engineering Fair (GSEF), coordinated by the University of Georgia, can go on to win tens of thousands of dollars in national and international competitions, and other unique opportunities, such as an all-expense paid trip to Stockholm, Sweden, for a week of events surrounding the annual announcement of the Nobel Prize, or free legal assistance to have their award-winning project patented.

In the past two years, winners from GSEF who have gone to the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) have walked away with top awards, beating out more than 1,600 competitors from 48 states and more than 60 countries, regions and territories.

One, Pragathi Kasani-Akula from South Forsyth High School in Cumming, has the distinction of winning the top award in biochemistry at ISEF, her project on cancer detection beating out every other entry in that category.

“What blows my mind is the idea that she has the best biochemistry project among high school students in the world,” said Laura Brewer, director of Academic Special Programs at the UGA Center for Continuing Education & Hotel. “Many categories at ISEF have ties for first place, but not biochemistry.”

Kasani-Akula’s project has won more than $20,000 in scholarships from state, national and international science competitions.

In 2024, she was invited to the White House after presenting her cancer detection project during the 2024 Georgia Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, also coordinated by UGA and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense. She was one of 10 young women from around the world selected by then-First Lady Jill Biden as “Girls Leading Change,” in recognition of the International Day of the Girl. She was selected for her project as well as for teaching elementary school students about epidemiology as part of her involvement in the Science Olympiad from sixth grade forward.

Supporting youth academic programs like GSEF is among the ways UGA fulfills its mission as a land-grant and sea-grant university.

“Competitions like GSEF are crucial to our state’s economic vitality,” Brewer said. “Nurturing our future workforce to be well-educated in STEM fields and innovation will equip tomorrow’s leaders with the skills and creativity to drive progress and change in our communities.”

For Daniel Williams, from East Coweta High School in Newnan, qualifying at GSEF for the 2024 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair and winning the Chief of Naval Research Scholarship Award ($15,000) was his ticket to higher education. Williams just finished his first year at Georgia Southern University, where he is studying mechanical engineering with an emphasis on vehicle design.

“My parents couldn’t afford to send me to college,” he said. “It’s a blessing. It’s definitely changed my life.”

Williams earned his spot at ISEF by winning a Grand Award at GSEF, where he also won Best-in-Category for the “Zenith Soar X-4: Autonomous Drone for Disaster Relief and Detection,” a robot—a drone—that could help locate victims of natural disasters.

He says he got the idea for the drone from a documentary about emergency first responders in Florida who would fly helicopters during hurricanes to look for stranded residents, only to end up victims of the storm themselves.

“It mentioned that many victims and first responders didn’t die in the incident but in the aftermath because it was hard to reach them in time,” Williams said. “This inspired me to use technology to help.”

He had never participated in the science fair before his senior year of high school because he thought it was for students who attended STEM (Science, Technology, Mathematics and Engineering) schools.

“I did a whole lot better than I thought I would do,” Williams said. “I wish I’d thought about it sooner.”

In addition to the Chief of Naval Research award, Williams also received $500 from ISEF for placing fourth in the Robotics and Intelligent Machines category. At the 2024 GSEF he was selected as the top winner of the Georgia Intellectual Property Alliance (GIPA) Young Inventor’s Award, sponsored by Founders Legal, an intellectual property law firm in Atlanta. The GIPA award includes free legal assistance from Founders Legal towards obtaining a patent for Williams’ project.

Kasani-Akula received $6,000 for taking the top award in biochemistry at the 2025 Regeneron ISEF. Her project, “Nano Architectures for the Identification of Exosomes of TNBC (Triple Negative Breast Cancer),” is a process through which biomarkers for TNBC can be detected in the blood allowing earlier diagnosis and treatment. She is one of three ISEF contestants selected for the 2025 Dudley R. Herschbach SIYSS Award, an all-expense paid trip to Sweden for the Stockholm International Youth Science Seminar, a multi-disciplinary event highlighting some of the most remarkable achievements by young scientists from around the world. The seminar coincides with Nobel Week.

The project also won first place and a $2,000 scholarship in the 2025 Georgia Junior Science and Humanities Symposium and qualified for the national competition. There she took first place for her oral presentation in chemistry and was awarded a $12,000 college scholarship, bringing her total winnings to more than $20,000.

The inspirations for her project were her mother, grandmother and an aunt, all breast cancer survivors, though none had TNBC. In addition to earlier detection, Kasani-Akula also hopes her research will lead to lower costs for mammograms, which could help motivate women to get tested every year as recommended.

Her interest in science began in sixth grade when a friend encouraged her to participate in the science bowl at their school.

“I was inspired by Marie Curie, so I decided to study chemistry,” Kasani-Akula said. She recalls reading a chemistry book while her friend sat nearby, reading about biology.

She got involved with the school’s Science Olympiad that year as well and is now co-captain of the South Forsyth Science Olympiad team. The school has never won the state competition, she says, but that’s OK.

“Even more meaningful was the passion I developed for chemistry,” Kasani-Akula said.