Science

14‑Year‑Old Virginia Student Among 30 Finalists in 2026 Thermo Fisher Junior Innovators Challenge

By Arshdeep Kaur

Isabel Rossi, a 14‑year‑old freshman at Jamestown High School in Williamsburg, Virginia, has been named one of 30 finalists in the 2026 Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge. Rossi earned her spot out of nearly 10,000 middle‑school applicants nationwide with a project that proposes a more efficient method for placing earthquake sensors. The project, titled *Listening in the Right Places: Game Theory and Optimisation for Earthquake Sensor Placement*, was developed while she was an eighth‑grader at James Blair Middle School.

Rossi’s interest in science began early, influenced by her parents—her father, Enrico Rossi, a physics teacher at William & Mary, and her mother, Margarita Marinova, an English professor at Christopher Newport University—and her older sister’s chemistry and physics experiments. At nine, she worked with a retired NASA engineer to build homemade rockets and refine their flight performance. She has also organized and coached a MathCounts team, hosted a STEAM event for younger students, and plays violin in the Williamsburg Youth Orchestra.

Her research focuses on the Los Angeles region, where she used simulations to evaluate sensor placement. Rossi accessed a library of past earthquake data and existing sensor locations, then generated random sets of potential sensor sites. Each arrangement was assessed with a weighted‑sum model and a Nash bargaining approach, and compared to the Pareto frontier to balance detection accuracy and accessibility. The study found that the Nash bargaining method produced arrangements closer to the Pareto frontier, suggesting a potential 16.7 % improvement in detection coverage with the addition of five sensors.

While the model does not guarantee the same improvement in a real network, it demonstrates how mathematical modelling can aid in selecting sensor locations before costly installations, especially in resource‑constrained or difficult terrain.

Rossi will present her research at the national competition’s final round in Washington, D.C., from October 23 to 28. The event will feature students from 17 states and Puerto Rico competing for more than $100,000 in awards, including a $25,000 grand prize.