For Alaina Zhang, seaweed is more than something that washes up along the shore. It could be part of an answer to a pollution problem threatening coastal ecosystems.
The 17-year-old Rhode Island student created Harvesting Change, a project exploring whether locally grown seaweed can remove excess nitrogen from coastal waters before that pollution contributes to damaging algal blooms. Her research focuses on sugar kelp, Saccharina latissima , and suggests that farming the native seaweed could offer an environmentally friendly and comparatively inexpensive way to capture nutrients already in the water. Zhang's work earned her recognition as one of the 2025 winners of the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes.
