Cupertino 10th-Grader Wins National Honor For Desalination Research

India-West News Desk

CUPERTINO, CA– Rohan Agarwal, a sophomore at Monta Vista High School, placed second nationally in the 2025-26 Modeling the Future Challenge, earning a $15,000 college scholarship for research examining financial and environmental risks tied to California’s desalination infrastructure.

Competing as Blue Leaf Labs, Agarwal was also selected for publication in the Society of Actuaries’ Actuarial Research Clearing House journal. The national competition, organized by The Actuarial Foundation, drew 157 teams from 25 states.

Agarwal competed as a solo entrant through Monta Vista’s Interdisciplinary Research and Project Design program, an independent research curriculum that encourages long-form student research.

His project focused on the Carlsbad Desalination Plant, California’s largest desalination facility, which serves about 400,000 residents in San Diego County. The research analyzed financial risks linked to concentrated brine discharge and examined possible approaches to reduce harm to nearby marine ecosystems.

The work was recognized in multiple academic competitions, including the Synopsys Science Fair, Genius Olympiad, and the Modeling the Future Challenge.

“The IRPD program gives students the framework to ask open-ended questions and pursue real research to produce work that holds up to professional scrutiny,” Kavita Gupta, Agarwal’s IRPD teacher at Monta Vista High School, said in a statement.

“Rohan came in with a question about desalination and was able to generate publication-worthy output. That’s what independent research is supposed to produce,” Gupta added.

The Modeling the Future Challenge is an annual national competition that asks high school students to apply actuarial science and mathematical modeling to real-world problems.

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