At the 2025 Yau Science Award Global Finals, more than 2,800 teams from around the world participated. After multiple rounds of selection, 62 projects stood out and advanced to the final stage, earning recognition at the global level.

Mathematics Gold Award and Science Gold Award Project Analysis

School: Trinity School
Student: Michael Iofin
Project: Quasiconformal Normalization of Random Meromorphic Functions

This research deeply integrates random processes, quasiconformal mappings, and complex analysis. It proposes a new framework of “random quasiconformal normalization” and successfully proves that randomly generated covering surfaces are almost surely parabolic by constructing controllable random Beltrami coefficients. The project also provides clear upper bounds for the growth of the Nevanlinna characteristic of the corresponding meromorphic functions.

This work not only addresses a core challenge in the classification of conformal types of random Riemann surfaces, but also provides an unprecedented technical tool for random complex geometry. The project demonstrates exceptional originality, technical difficulty, and theoretical depth.

Its methods may influence multiple fields, including geometric analysis, probability theory, and mathematical physics. It fully aligns with the Yau Mathematics Gold Award’s standards for depth, innovation, and long-term impact, making it highly deserving of recognition.

Biology Gold Award Project Analysis

School: Shenzhen Middle School
Student: Li Yihao
Project: Design a “Molecular Universe” within Cells: Exploring Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation and the Design of Biological Condensates

Inspired by astronomical phenomena, the student creatively transformed the concept of a “molecular universe” into a programmable multiphase biological condensate engineering platform.

By designing two pairs of orthogonal protein condensates as “molecular planets” and introducing affinity-tunable linkers as “molecular gravity,” the project achieved rational design and dynamic control of multiphase condensate structures both in vitro and inside living cells. These structures ranged from independent interphase condensates to nested phase-within-phase structures.

The project established a physical model connecting linker affinity, interfacial tension, and multiphase morphology. It also used an inducible expression system to achieve temporally controlled assembly in cells, providing a new synthetic biology tool for building functional artificial organelles and precisely regulating cellular processes.

Specifically, the project constructed two orthogonal protein condensate systems, RIM-RBP with high dynamics and SUMO-SIM with high stability. It introduced affinity-tunable coiled-coil and CL9-IM2 linkers in the nanomolar to micromolar range as “molecular gravity,” successfully programming multiphase condensate structures in vitro.

Experiments showed that linker affinity and concentration jointly determine the final morphology of condensates. Low affinity led to independent coexistence of phases, medium affinity induced nested phase-within-phase structures, while high affinity caused complete fusion.

More importantly, by using the Tet-On inducible system to express free linkers in HeLa cells, the project achieved temporal reorganization of pre-formed condensates and dynamically constructed nested multiphase structures in a living cellular environment.

This project won the Gold Award because it used a unique interdisciplinary perspective, creatively comparing self-organization in astronomy with liquid-liquid phase separation inside cells. It designed a highly original and logically rigorous “molecular universe” engineering system.

By rationally constructing orthogonal protein condensates and tunable molecular linkers, the project systematically explained the formation rules and physical mechanisms of multiphase biological condensates. It also successfully achieved temporally controlled dynamic assembly of multiphase structures in living cells.

This research integrates frontier techniques in biophysics, synthetic biology, and cell biology. Conceptually, it completes the full pathway from observing a phenomenon to theoretical modeling and functional design. It demonstrates outstanding scientific imagination, solid experimental ability, and clear engineering thinking, offering an innovative solution for programmable cellular compartmentalization in synthetic biology.

Physics Gold Award Project Analysis

School: Chongqing Yucai Secondary School
Students: Mou Tianhao and Luo Haiyi
Project: “Phase Transition” in a Mechanical System: Rotation-Induced Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking and Hysteresis Loop

This research uses an extremely simple mechanical model, a single ball moving inside a rotating circular groove, to recreate the core mechanisms of phase transitions in thermodynamics and statistical physics. It transforms abstract and complex phase transition theory into an observable, measurable, and teachable classical mechanics phenomenon.

By constructing an effective potential energy model and systematically analyzing its shape changes, the project clearly demonstrates the essential differences between continuous and discontinuous phase transitions, the origin of symmetry breaking, and the microscopic mechanism of hysteresis.

Through a carefully built experimental platform, the students observed theoretically predicted equilibrium jumps, bistable structures, and clear hysteresis loops under different rotational speeds and eccentricity conditions. The width of the hysteresis loop was shown to increase quantitatively with eccentricity.

This work visualizes hysteretic phase transition phenomena in a simple mechanical system for the first time. It establishes a rigorous, intuitive, and highly generalizable phase transition model from the perspectives of theory, experiment, and analogy.

The project deepens understanding of the universal features of phase transitions and provides a scalable platform for physics education and complex systems research. Its strong innovation, physical depth, and extensibility fully demonstrate the ability to transform fundamental physics principles into original research results, making it highly deserving of the Physics Gold Award.

Chemistry Gold Award Project Analysis

School: Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to Shanghai International Studies University
Student: Zhu Yiran
Project: Fabrication of a NTO/Ag/g-C3N4 Self-Supporting Membrane for Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production from Seawater

This project closely connects with national energy strategy and environmental protection needs. As a clean energy source, hydrogen has become a major global research focus, and green hydrogen production is especially important.

Seawater is abundant, and using solar energy to split seawater for hydrogen production is an important pathway toward green hydrogen. This research not only focuses on catalytic efficiency, but also emphasizes catalyst recovery and pollution control, reflecting a strong sustainability mindset.

The project addresses a clear problem: traditional powdered catalysts tend to aggregate, are difficult to recover, and may cause secondary pollution. A self-supporting membrane catalyst can simulate a “fishing net” approach, achieving both efficient catalysis and easy recovery, with strong engineering application potential.

The project designed and fabricated a self-supporting membrane catalyst that combines high catalytic efficiency with recyclability.

Its scientific innovation lies in the construction of a multidimensional composite Z-scheme heterojunction photocatalyst based on sodium titanate ultralong nanowires, NTO/Ag/g-C3N4. In this system, Ag nanoparticles serve both as electron mediators and plasmonic hot-electron sources, significantly enhancing visible-light absorption and carrier separation efficiency.

By further using the flexible interwoven structure of nanowires, the project successfully created a self-supporting catalytic membrane with good mechanical stability and recyclability. This enabled efficient, continuous, and low-pollution photocatalytic hydrogen production from seawater.

The project won the Gold Award because of its clear innovation, systematic experimental design, logical research structure, strong application orientation, and excellent scientific execution. It not only demonstrates the student’s solid foundation in chemistry and materials science, but also reflects a strong sense of social responsibility and research potential in addressing energy and environmental challenges.

This is an outstanding research project with both academic depth and practical value, offering valuable ideas and experimental foundations for the future development of green hydrogen technology.

Computer Science Gold Award Project Analysis

School: Shanghai High School International Division
Student: Simon Leonardo Liu
Project: Beyond Reactive Assistance: PV-Care Using Low-Density EEG and AI to Provide Proactive, Context-Aware Help for MCI

Based on the real needs of an aging society, this project proposes PV-Care, an intelligent care system that can proactively understand a user’s brain state, combine it with environmental visual information, and use large language models to generate natural voice assistance.

The project’s core contribution is not only the integration of EEG-based cognitive state recognition, deep neural network design through SFR-Net, visual perception, and LLM control into a complete AI system. More importantly, it shifts assistive technology from “reactive assistance” to “proactive cognitive-aware assistance.”

The system demonstrates full-chain technical innovation, covering hardware data collection, signal processing, deep learning, scene semantic understanding, and LLM-based output control.

In simulation experiments and user testing, the system achieved high accuracy and strong practical effectiveness. It is the first to demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of context-aware LLM interaction triggered by brain signals for people with mild cognitive impairment.

This project has clear social value, solid engineering implementation, an original model architecture, and deep interdisciplinary integration. It fully reflects the innovation, technical difficulty, and impact emphasized by the Computer Science Gold Award.

Economics and Financial Modeling Gold Award Project Analysis

School: Shanghai Starriver Bilingual School
Students: Yan Liqian, Qiu Zichun, and Chen Yintong
Project: Firm-Level Impacts of Artificial Intelligence on Labor Demand: Evidence from Online Job Postings

Using firm-level cross-industry data from 2015 to 2024, this study systematically quantifies the substitution effect, complementarity effect, and wage polarization effect of artificial intelligence on labor demand.

Methodologically, the project combines OLS, instrumental variables, and difference-in-differences methods to effectively reduce endogeneity concerns. It fills an important micro-level empirical gap in current research on AI’s impact on employment.

The study clearly shows that after adopting AI, firms significantly reduce demand for routine labor, increase demand for high-skilled labor, and push the wage structure toward skill-biased polarization.

It also identifies a large number of new occupations emerging after 2018, revealing AI’s job-creation effect and its potential long-term welfare implications.

This project integrates labor economics, technological shock theory, and modern econometric methods. It combines a strong theoretical framework, rigorous empirical methods, and meaningful policy implications.

With significant social relevance and frontier academic value, the project fully meets the Yau Science Award’s Gold Award standards for originality, data depth, methodological rigor, and economic insight.

What These Gold Award Projects Tell Us

Professor Shing-Tung Yau once said that cultivating curiosity during high school is extremely important.

The award-winning projects at the Yau Science Award Global Finals are perhaps the best interpretation of this idea. They also reflect the original mission of the Yau Science Award.

The Yau Science Award is a competition that values research methods and the essence of science. Across different disciplines, Gold Award projects often begin with students’ real-life observations, curiosity, and thoughtful reflection.

These projects show that scientific research is not unreachable. High school students can also conduct research that has the potential to change the world.