Monta Vista Sophomore Wins National Scholarship for Desalination Research

CUPERTINO, CA - May 2026 - Rohan Agarwal, a sophomore at Monta Vista High School and student in the school's Interdisciplinary Research and Project Design (IRPD) program, has placed second nationally in the 2025-26 Modeling the Future Challenge (MTFC), a prestigious mathematical and actuarial modeling competition run by The Actuarial Foundation. Competing as Blue Leaf Labs, Agarwal earned a $15,000 college scholarship and a publication in the Society of Actuaries' Actuarial Research Clearing House (ARCH). The competition drew 157 teams from 25 states; Agarwal competed as a solo entrant and was selected through a rigorous multi-stage process including a 25-page research report, recorded presentations, and live judged interviews with a panel of actuarial professionals.

Agarwal began the project in October 2025 through Monta Vista's IRPD program, an independent research curriculum drawing on the Stanford d.school design framework, which supports students in pursuing long-form, self-directed research. His project examined the intersection of California water infrastructure and financial risk modeling, focusing on the Carlsbad Desalination Plant - California's largest, serving approximately 400,000 San Diego County residents. The project modeled the financial liability created by the plant's concentrated brine discharge and evaluated solutions to protect local marine ecosystems. This work has since been recognized by judges in three separate competitions including Synopsys Science Fair, Genius Olympiad, and MTFC - spanning physical science and engineering, environmental science, and actuarial science.

"The IRPD program gives students the framework to ask open-ended questions and pursue real research to produce work that holds up to professional scrutiny. Rohan came in with a question about desalination and was able to generate publication worthy output. That's what independent research is supposed to produce," said Mrs. Kavita Gupta, Agarwal's IRPD teacher at Monta Vista High School.

The Modeling the Future Challenge is an annual competition open to high school students across the United States, challenging teams to apply actuarial science and mathematical modeling to real-world risk problems. The full project report is publicly available here, and the research code at github.com/blueleaflabs/osmoflux.

Contact: Rohan Agarwal

rohan.agarwal@blueleaflabs.org

Blue Leaf Labs/Monta Vista High School, Class of 2028