ix students from the 2026 Davidson Fellows Scholarship class have recently been featured in Indian American media for their innovative research and accomplishments.
Aditya Sengupta, Tanishka Aglave, Hitaishi Chillara, Praadhyumn Indaana, Rajarshi Mandal and Pavan Subramani were highlighted by The Economic Times, The American Bazaar, Hindustan Times and Indian Eagle for their work addressing challenges in aviation safety, agriculture, astronomy, nuclear energy, malaria prevention and drug discovery.
Sengupta, 18, of Bellevue, Washington, was named a $100,000 Davidson Fellow Laureate for his project, “ForeCAT: Advancing Clear Air Turbulence Prediction for Aviation Safety with Atmospheric Physics Informed Neural Networks and Spatiotemporal Weather Data.” His work uses machine learning, atmospheric physics and weather data to improve predictions of clear-air turbulence.
Aglave, 17, of Valrico, Florida, received a $50,000 scholarship for developing an eco-friendly approach to managing citrus greening disease. Her project combines a curry leaf-derived biological treatment, localized steam therapy and a computer vision tool to assess disease severity.
Chillara, 17, of Leander, Texas, received a $50,000 scholarship for developing a computational framework that combines cosmological simulations, telescope observations and machine learning to study the relationship between galaxies and the supermassive black holes at their centers.
Indaana, 17, of Montvale, New Jersey, received a $50,000 scholarship for developing a physics-regularized neural network to improve predictions of critical heat flux, an important factor in nuclear reactor safety. His model was trained using data from more than 10,000 experiments.
Mandal, 16, of Lexington, Massachusetts, received a $50,000 scholarship for developing a mathematical model to optimize the distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets for malaria prevention. His model accounts for factors including insecticide resistance, seasonal changes in transmission and net degradation.
Subramani, 17, of Morgantown, West Virginia, received a $25,000 scholarship for developing a method that combines generative diffusion models with molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate drug discovery. His approach is designed to make molecular simulations more efficient while maintaining their accuracy.
The Davidson Fellows Scholarship recognizes students 18 and younger who have completed significant work with the potential to benefit society. The 2026 Fellows are being recognized for projects spanning science, engineering, technology, mathematics, music and other fields.