The grand prize she took home as America's Top Young Scientist, at age 13.
Raji Doshi collects seashells. That hobby is where the project started. She noticed that as the ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide, the water turns more acidic, and acidic water eats away at the shells and the animals living inside them. Most kids would have left it at a sad fact. She built a system to do something about it.
The result is ALKACORE. It pairs macroalgae with aragonite, a natural form of calcium carbonate, to raise the alkalinity of seawater and pull carbon dioxide out of it. Using carbonate chemistry analysis, she showed that adding aragonite helped the algae grow, removed CO2, and lowered the dissolved carbon dioxide in the water. She then built a Michaelis-Menten computational model to estimate the best aragonite dose.
On October 12 and 13, she took it to 3M's headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota, where 10 finalists between the ages of 11 and 14 competed. Judges scored creativity, scientific knowledge, communication, ingenuity, application of STEM principles, and research. Raji won the $25,000 grand prize and the title of America's Top Young Scientist. Two runners-up, Aaisha Asif of Sarasota, Florida, and Sharvi Mahajan of San Diego, California, each took home $1,000.
"I entered the 3M Young Scientist Challenge because I wanted to do something real with my research."
Notice the word she chose: real. Not impressive, not winning. Real. Her 3M mentor, product engineering specialist Deborah Isabelle, worked with her one-on-one over the summer to move the idea from concept to prototype, and that pairing is a core part of the program. Every finalist gets a working scientist in their corner.
The challenge is now in its 19th year, and it is open to students in grades five through eight. Its alumni network, formed in 2022, includes more than 100 former winners, finalists, and mentors. Young Scientist Lab, the program's support arm, offers free digital resources for students, teachers, and families, so the starting line does not require a lab.
ANF Take. Detroit talks a lot about keeping founders in the city. The earlier question is how many kids ever get asked to build something real in the first place. Raji's story is a template, not a miracle: pick a problem you care about, find a mentor who will work through a summer with you, and enter the competition that forces you to explain it. Detroit has the schools, the engineers, and the manufacturers to run that same play for its own eighth graders.
She started with a seashell. She ended with a prototype and a title. The distance between those two is a mentor and a deadline.
Sources: American Bazaar, October 15, 2026; 3BL Media and 3M press release on the 2026 3M Young Scientist Challenge.
