The hard work that has been put in by our AUSSEF and NZ teams has been rewarded with three of our students receiving Grand Awards totalling USD $3,600 at this morning’s Grand Award Presentation Ceremony.
Our star achiever in the Special Awards last night, Michael Reeves, was again our top performer today taking out 2nd place in the Embedded Systems category. Here is the list of our Grand Award winners for ISEF 2026:
Michael Reeves, Ivanhoe Grammar School, Victoria: Second Award of $2,400 in Embedded Systems – CryoFlow: A Streaming FPGA Architecture for High-Efficiency Cryogenic Electron Microscopy Reconstruction
Daniel Cox, The Scots College, NSW: Fourth Award of $600 in Environmental Engineering – A Distributed Solar Photothermal System for Scalable, Chemical-Free Weed Control
Jayashruthi Palanisamy, Chevalier College, NSW: Fourth Award of $600 in Technology Enhances the Arts – Echo Glove
Earning a Grand Award at ISEF is a most significant achievement and congratulations to Daniel, Jayashruthi and Michael. However, our other finalists who missed out this year on a Grand Award, put in a marvellous effort and would definitely have been in consideration. Each of them performed strongly and have been exemplary ambassadors for Australia and New Zealand.
Having come together as total strangers eight days ago, they have formed a tight knit community which would have been evident in the photos and videos that we have posted online. It is this opportunity to work together as a team and network with like-minded students from around the world that makes this ISEF trip a life-changing experience. Thank you once again to all our sponsors for making this trip possible and we would be extremely grateful if you could continue your support for future years.