The award
The Society for Science, which runs the fair, published the full 2025 awards list on 16 May 2025. Siyaa Poddar of Arizona College Prep High School appears among the Regeneron Young Scientist Award recipients, with the project code MATS043, placing her entry in the materials science category.
The fair's headline awards that year included the George D. Yancopoulos Innovator Award, the Regeneron Young Scientist Awards, the Gordon E. Moore Award, the Craig R. Barrett Award for Innovation and the Mary Sue Coleman Award. Beneath them sit the category prizes, running from $6,000 for a first award down to $600 for a fourth.
What the project is
The registered title is a full sentence, and it states the work precisely: “Developing a Rapid, Colorimetric Metal Organic Framework (MOF) for Airborne Silica and Uranium Detection: A Novel Approach to Pollutant Monitoring and Health Risk Assessment in Indigenous Communities for Sjogren's Syndrome”.
Colorimetric means the readout is a colour change rather than an instrument reading, which is what makes a sensor usable by someone without a laboratory. A metal-organic framework is a porous crystalline material whose internal surface can be engineered to bind particular substances. Put together, the title describes a material designed to trap the target particles and report their presence visibly and quickly.
What the title claims, and what it does not
The title names two airborne hazards, silica and uranium, a setting, Indigenous communities, and a health question, risk assessment relating to Sjogren's syndrome. It is a statement of intent registered with the fair, not a published paper.
The awards list carries no abstract, no data, no detection thresholds and no account of testing. Nothing in it establishes how well the material performed, whether it was trialled outside a laboratory, or whether the health-risk element was assessed with anyone. What is documented is the design goal and the judges' verdict on the work presented to them.
The fair around it
The Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair is the largest pre-college science competition in the world, and 2025 was its seventy-fifth edition. The Society for Science's own headline recorded that teenage scientists took away more than $9 million in awards.
Finalists reach it by winning affiliated regional fairs, so every project in the hall has already won somewhere else. Awards are given across categories as well as through the named top prizes, which is why the list published on 16 May runs to hundreds of names and why a single entry in it represents a narrow selection from a very large field.
Veinte preguntas, ocho minutos de reloj y un percentil medido frente a todos los que la han hecho. Sin registro.
Hacer la prueba de CI →What is documented — and what is not
The firm facts are the award, the fair, the year, the school and the exact project title, all published by the organisation that ran the competition. That is the strongest class of evidence available for a result of this kind.
The gaps are real. The value of her award is not clearly stated in the release as read for this page, and no age, date of birth, home town, photograph or quotation appears in it. There is no follow-up reporting, so nothing here establishes whether the sensor was developed further, tested in the field, or taken up by anyone after May 2025.
| Persona | País | Hito | Edad / Dato |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sawsan Ahmed | Estados Unidos | La graduada más joven del Broward College, a los 12 años, en diciembre de 2021 | 12 años |
| Arvind Mahankali | Estados Unidos | Ganó el Scripps National Spelling Bee de 2013 a los 13 años | 13 años |
| Kerry Close | Estados Unidos | Ganó el Scripps National Spelling Bee de 2006 a los 13 años | 13 años |
| Shania Muhammad | Estados Unidos | La graduada más joven de la Langston University, a los 15 años | 15 años |
| Siyaa Poddar | Estados Unidos | Premio Regeneron Young Scientist, ISEF 2025 | — |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Listed among the Regeneron Young Scientist Award recipients at ISEF 2025 (Society for Science)
- School given as Arizona College Prep High School, Arizona; project code MATS043
- Full project title published verbatim in the awards release of 16 May 2025
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- The exact value of her award is not clearly stated in the release as read here
- No data, detection thresholds or testing results published for the sensor
- No age, date of birth, home town, photograph or quotation, and no follow-up reporting
Questions people ask about Siyaa Poddar
What did Siyaa Poddar win?
A Regeneron Young Scientist Award at the 2025 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, for a colorimetric sensor for airborne silica and uranium.
What is a colorimetric MOF sensor?
A metal-organic framework is a porous material engineered to bind specific substances; colorimetric means it signals their presence through a visible colour change rather than an instrument reading.
How much was the award worth?
The release as read for this page does not state a clear value for her award. Category prizes at the fair run from $6,000 for a first award down to $600.
How old is Siyaa Poddar?
No source in this record gives her age or date of birth. The awards list names her school but not her age.
Where does she go to school?
Arizona College Prep High School in Arizona, as listed by the Society for Science.
Was the sensor tested in the field?
No source in this record states that it was. The awards list publishes the project title, not its data.
Is Siyaa Poddar on Wikipedia?
No Wikipedia article was found for her. The Society for Science awards release is the primary published record.
How big is ISEF?
It is the largest pre-college science competition in the world. In 2025, its seventy-fifth year, it awarded more than $9 million.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Poddar’s story?
What does Siyaa Poddar's sensor detect?
What does colorimetric mean here?
Which fair was it?
Sources
- Full Awards: Teen Scientists Win More Than $9 Million at the 75th Annual Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair — Society for Science, 2025-05-16
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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