Interlake High School sophomore Anusha Arora won a $50,000 scholarship at the world's largest precollege science fair. Her device reads emotions through fingertip sensors and plays music to calm users down.
Arora, 15, took first place in the Technology Enhances the Arts category and the inaugural F. Thomson Leighton and Bonnie Berger Family Prize for STEM Excellence at the 2026 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), according to a Regeneron press release issued after the May 15 Grand Awards Ceremony in Phoenix, Arizona.
Her platform, called HARMONI (Harmonically Adaptive Real-Time Multimodal Output for Neural Integration), uses finger sensors to gather physiological data. Eleven AI programs work together to detect a user's emotional state and generate music and visuals in real time. Across several experiments, users showed reductions in stress and anxiety and stayed more engaged with therapy sessions, according to the Regeneron announcement.
The idea started at home.
"The main inspiration was a little personal experience with my mother and I saw how music could really calm her down and reduce her stress," Arora said in a Society for Science video recorded at the ceremony.
The STEM Excellence prize, new for 2026, recognizes the project that best demonstrates mastery in algorithm design and large-scale data analysis. The $50,000 scholarship can be applied to the educational institution of the winner's choice, according to Regeneron.
Arora was not the only Bellevue student to take home a top prize. Lakshmi Agrawal, 18, also of Interlake High School, received the Regeneron Young Scientist Award and $75,000 for a sponge that removes salmon-killing pollutants from water, according to Science News Explores.
The Bellevue School District and Interlake High School have not issued public statements about either student's wins.
The competition drew more than 1,700 students from 67 countries, regions and territories. Finalists collectively received more than $7 million in awards, with top prizes ranging from $10,000 to $100,000.
Society for Science featured Arora on Sunday, Oct. 11, alongside four other young women scientists from the 2026 ISEF, in a blog post marking the United Nations' International Day of the Girl. In that post, Arora said representation in STEM "can change the question from 'Do I fit here?' to 'What will I contribute?'"
