Ten of Katy ISD’s budding scientists were recognized for their research and achievement at this year’s Science & Engineering Fair of Houston (SEFH), held in February at the Fort Bend Epicenter, the district announced on March 25. The event celebrates the scientific research of secondary students in life sciences, physical sciences and engineering.

SEFH is the regional science fair for Harris County and the surrounding 22 counties, and first and second place winners will advance to the Texas State Science & Engineering Fair, which was be held in late March at Texas A&M University.

Among this year’s winners, Tompkins High School’s May Espinola was named a Grand Award winner in the Senior Physical Sciences category and her project has automatically advanced to the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair. Brothers Arsh and Aarush Kudariya were both named winners in their respective fields and categories.

“We are so proud of these students for placing at the regional fair because there are highly-accomplished young researchers across our region,” said Danielle Sanchez, Director of GT and Advanced Academics in Katy ISD. “I’d like to recognize their families and educators for helping these students earn this outstanding achievement.”

The following Katy ISD students were named 2025 SEFH winners:

Name School Division Category Project Title Place

Arsh Kudariya Beckendorff Junior High Junior Physics and Astronomy Leveraging Computational Fluid Dynamics for Real-Time Pipe Diagnostics Through Reynolds Number Analysis 1st Place

Vatsal Sharda Cinco Ranch High School Senior Embedded Systems ImpairiLink: A novel, machine-learning based attentiveness and navigation aid system for the blind/impaired using haptic technology 1st Place

May Espinola Tompkins High School Senior Systems Software Unobstructing voice for the deaf: A real-time centered signed language recognition system 1st Place

Diya Rajkumar Tays Junior High Junior Chemistry Computational Simulations of Antibody Binding to VAPB Receptors for Targeted Therapy in Medulloblastoma 2nd Place

Aarush Kudariya Seven Lakes High School Senior Biochemistry and Microbiology Targeting pMHC: A Novel Tripartite In-Silico Approach for Liposome-Aided Ultralong Antibody Therapy in Colorectal Cancer Variants 2nd Place

Rishan Hemrajani, Suchay Kommisetty and Jay Sahni Jordan High School Senior Energy and Transportation Optimization of Solar Cells through Simulation of a Quantum Dot Buffer Layer 3rd Place

Andy Long Seven Lakes High School Senior Physics and Astronomy Numerical Transition Radiation Simulations for Electron Beam Structure Analysis and Machine Learning Modeling 3rd Place

Alexander Park Cinco Ranch High School Senior Embedded Systems Developing a low-cost Peltier-element-based Precision Temperature Controller PCB Honorable Mention