Second in St Paul
Discovery Education announced the 2024 result on 16 October. The title of America's Top Young Scientist and a $25,000 prize went to Sirish Subash, a ninth grader from Snellville, Georgia, for Pestiscand, a handheld device that detects pesticide residues on produce using spectrophotometry and machine learning, reported at better than 85 per cent accuracy on spinach and tomatoes.
Weerasekera placed second, with a prize of $2,000. William Tan, an eighth grader from Scarsdale Middle School in New York, was third with an AI-guided artificial reef intended to support marine growth, also for $2,000. Fourth through tenth received $1,000 each plus a $500 gift card.
The project
The announcement describes Weerasekera's entry as an energy storage solution using organic compounds and sulphur-based terthiophene. Terthiophene is a molecule of three linked thiophene rings, a building block of the conducting polymers that chemists have spent two decades trying to turn into electrodes.
The attraction of organic materials for energy storage is not performance but supply. Conventional lithium-ion cells depend on cobalt, nickel and lithium, all mined, all concentrated in a handful of countries, and all subject to price shocks and environmental and labour objections. An electrode made from carbon and sulphur chemistry can in principle be synthesised anywhere, from feedstocks that are not geopolitically scarce. Turning that principle into a cell that holds charge over thousands of cycles is the open problem, and it is an unusually ambitious one for a ninth grader to pick up.
How the challenge works
The 3M Young Scientist Challenge is aimed at middle school students and was in its seventeenth year in 2024. Entry is a short video describing an idea; from those, ten finalists are chosen and each is paired one-to-one with a 3M scientist as a summer mentor, with the explicit task of turning a concept into a working prototype.
The final itself, held at 3M's global headquarters, is a two-day sequence of interactive challenges and presentations judged on ingenuity, application of science and engineering, the student's evident passion for research, presentation skill and capacity to inspire. The mentorship is the part that distinguishes the contest from a science fair: the finalists arrive having spent months with a professional researcher, and the gap between the entry video and the final prototype is often enormous.
The company on that list
The challenge has become a reliable producer of national news stories, in part because its winners tend to attack recognisable problems. The 2023 title went to Heman Bekele for a skin-cancer-treating soap; the 2022 title to Leanne Fan for headphones that detect and treat middle-ear infection using machine learning and blue light. Second place, in other words, sits in a line of entries that get taken seriously well beyond the school circuit.
It is worth keeping the prize money in proportion. The winner takes $25,000; the runner-up, $2,000. What second place is actually worth is the summer of mentorship, the prototype, and the record of having been one of ten finalists in a national field.
What is documented, and what is not
Firm: Weerasekera was a ninth grader at Mountainside High School in Beaverton, Oregon; placed second at the 2024 3M Young Scientist Challenge; the project was an energy storage solution using organic compounds and sulphur-based terthiophene; second place carried $2,000; the final was held on 14 and 15 October 2024 at 3M headquarters in St Paul.
Not documented: age or birth year, the performance figures of the energy store, whether the work has continued, and anything published since October 2024. The research record behind this page also notes that the source does not state a gender, and this page follows the sources rather than assuming.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minula Weerasekera | United States | Second place, 2024 3M Young Scientist Challenge | — |
| Raphael Hurley | Ireland | Young Scientist of the Year 1998, the mathematics of Monopoly | — |
| Marina Dimitrov | United States | America's Top Young Scientist, 2009 | — |
| Harini Venkatesh | United States | Second place, 2022 3M Young Scientist Challenge | — |
| Shripriya Kalbhavi | United States | Second place, 2023 3M Young Scientist Challenge | — |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Second place at the 2024 3M Young Scientist Challenge, with $2,000
- Ninth grader at Mountainside High School, Beaverton, Oregon
- Project described as organic-compound energy storage using sulphur-based terthiophene
- The final was held 14-15 October 2024 at 3M headquarters in St Paul
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- Age and birth year are not stated
- No performance figures for the energy store are published
- Nothing documented since the October 2024 announcement
Questions people ask about Minula Weerasekera
What did Minula Weerasekera do?
Placed second at the 2024 3M Young Scientist Challenge with an energy storage solution using organic compounds and a sulphur-based terthiophene.
Which school?
Mountainside High School in Beaverton, Oregon, as a ninth grader.
How much was the prize?
$2,000 for second place. The winner, Sirish Subash, received $25,000 and the title America's Top Young Scientist.
What is terthiophene?
A molecule of three linked thiophene rings, a sulphur-containing building block used in conducting polymers, which is why it turns up in organic electrode research.
How does the 3M Young Scientist Challenge work?
Middle school students enter with a short video. Ten finalists are chosen, each paired with a 3M scientist mentor over the summer to build a prototype, then compete over two days at 3M's headquarters in St Paul.
How old is Minula Weerasekera?
No source consulted gives an age or birth year; the announcement identifies a ninth grader.
Where is Minula Weerasekera now?
Nothing published after October 2024 was found in the sources used for this page.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Minula’s story?
Where did Minula Weerasekera place in the 2024 3M Young Scientist Challenge?
What was the project about?
Where is the final held?
Sources
- 14-year-old named America's Top Young Scientist for inventing an AI handheld pesticide detector — Discovery Education, 2024-10-16
- 14-year-old named America's Top Young Scientist for development of skin cancer treatment — Discovery Education, 2023-10-11
- 14-Year-old from California Named America's Top Young Scientist — Discovery Education, 2022-10-19
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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