SAN MATEO COUNTY, CA — Three students from San Mateo and Santa Clara counties were recognized Monday in a national art competition honoring innovators whose discoveries and contributions helped change the world.
The students were among 24 young artists awarded a total of $24,000 in ARTEFFECT's 2026 summer competition. This year's theme, "Innovation Generation," invited high school students to create visual art inspired by innovators whose achievements in science, medicine, technology and the arts have often gone unrecognized.
In San Mateo County, Yuen Kiu Grace Lai, a 12th-grade student at Westmoor High School in Daly City, received a Certificate of Excellence worth $750 for "Where Sound Takes Form," a digital artwork about inventor Emile Berliner.
In Santa Clara County, Iyla Lada, a 10th-grade student at Palo Alto High School, won the competition's second-place award of $1,000 for "Tendrils of Legacy," a colored-pencil and graphite work inspired by pioneering heart surgeon Vivien Thomas.
Yiting Wang, an 11th-grade student at Yun Hua Fang Art Studio in Saratoga, also received a Certificate of Excellence worth $750 for "The Piece She Found," a multimedia artwork celebrating neuroscientist Patricia Goldman-Rakic.
The competition featured paintings, drawings, digital art, mixed-media works and sculptures exploring the stories of more than 40 innovators. The 24 award recipients represented schools and independent programs across the United States and five other countries.
"The students participating in this competition have demonstrated that art can be a powerful way to explore the ideas, determination, and imagination behind some of history's most important innovations," said Lowell Milken, founder of ARTEFFECT and the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes.
The competition's top award was a $3,000 Grand Prize presented to Grace Li, a 10th-grade student at Lakeside School in Seattle, for "A Path of Her Own," an acrylic painting honoring Susan La Flesche Picotte, the first Native American to earn a medical degree in the United States.
Other top awards went to Serena Jung of New Jersey, who received $2,000 for a work honoring occupational health pioneer Alice Hamilton, and Nihaar Pinninti of Fullerton, California, who won $1,500 for a piece inspired by planetary scientist Gene Shoemaker.
ARTEFFECT is a visual arts education initiative founded by Milken that encourages students in grades six through 12 to explore the stories of people whose actions and ideas made a lasting impact on society.
The organization's annual competition is free to enter and is accepting submissions through April 19, 2027. More information about the competition and its winners is available at the ARTEFFECT website.
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