FARMINGTON — Raji Doshi loves collecting seashells. Her 3M mentor says it distressed her that ocean acidification is starting to damage them and the creatures inside. So the 13-year-old built a system of algae and aragonite to fight it. Last month it made her America's Top Young Scientist.
3M and Discovery Education named Doshi the winner of the 2026 3M Young Scientist Challenge, a national science competition for middle school students. The win came with $25,000. She is an eighth grader who lives in Farmington and attends Stanford Online High School.
That mentor, Deborah Isabelle, a product engineering specialist at 3M who worked with Doshi one-on-one over the summer, traced the project to those shells. "It was that passion that led her to create ALKACORE to address the ocean acidification issue," Isabelle said.
Doshi's system grows algae alongside aragonite, a natural form of calcium carbonate. Her project tests whether the pairing could be a cheap, lasting way to make coastal seawater less acidic. Carbon dioxide drives that acidification. 3M calls it a growing threat to sea life.
In her tests, 3M said, the aragonite helped the algae grow and substantially lowered the carbon dioxide dissolved in the water. She also built a computer model to find the best dose of aragonite.
She beat nine other finalists, ages 11 to 14, from across the country. The finals were Oct. 12 and 13 at 3M's headquarters in St. Paul, Minn.
Earlier winners of the contest, now in its 19th year, have given TED Talks, filed patents and founded nonprofits, 3M said.
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Jack Beckett had to look up "aragonite" for this one and is counting it as this year's science credit. He is on his second coffee. ☕
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