The Intel® International Science and Engineering Fair®  Exit (Intel ISEF) , is the world's largest international pre-college science competition. It is the premier global science competition for students in grades 9–12. Each year more than 1,700 high school students from over 70 countries, regions, and territories display their independent research and compete for more than $5 million in awards.  The 2017 Intel ISEF was held in Los Angeles, California, May 14^th – 19^th.

Since 2009, EPA has exhibited and shared information about environmental protection with the ISEF participants and visitors. EPA encourages the young innovators to apply science to environmental challenges and recognizes one student whose work demonstrates a commitment to environmental sustainability and stewardship with the EPA Patrick H. Hurd Sustainability Award. 

In 2011, the Sustainability Award was renamed in honor of Patrick Hurd, who managed the effort behind the first EPA Sustainability Award. Read his Science Wednesday blog post Science is Cool and Verle Hansen's blog post Among the Stars to get an idea of what ISEF is like.

On May 18, 2017  Adam Nayak was announced the winner of EPA’s 2017 Patrick H. Hurd Sustainability Award.  Nayak, a junior at Cleveland High School in Portland, OR, won for his project, “Modeling the Effects of Land Use Change on Flooding in Pacific Northwest Streams to Promote Green Practices.” The project was inspired at an early age when he wondered why fish weren’t coming back to the stream in his neighborhood. Nayak was selected from among 1,778 student scientists and engineers competing in ISEF in Los Angeles, California this week and went on to win “Best of Category” and “First Award” in Earth & Environmental Sciences during the Grand Award Ceremony on May 19^th.  

EPA's award provides funding for the winning student and a chaperone to participate in and display the student's project at EPA's P3: People, Prosperity, and the Planet Student Design Competition for Sustainability. P3 is an annual event that brings together young environmental innovators and scientists to showcase their designs for a sustainable future.

Past Patrick H. Hurd Sustainability Award Winners 

• 2016 Alexis D’Alessandro  New York High School Student Receives Prestigious Award for Developing Clean Drinking Water Project

• 2015 Joshua Zhou Chapel Hill High School Student Receives Prestigious Award for Developing a Low-Cost Method to Reduce Water Pollution

• 2014 Miriam Demasi Safe and Sound Housing: Lime/Fly Ash Papercrete as a Substitute for Adobe in Seismically-Active Regions in Developing Nations

• 2013 Jacquel Rivers and Arne Nipales Total Solar Strategy for the Tohono O'Odham Nation

• 2012 Thabit Pulak Home-Based Arsenic Bio-Sand Water Filter

• 2011Param Jaggi The Algae-Mobile 3: Bioactive Energy and Carbon Dioxide Filtration in the Exhaust of a Car

• 2010 John Charles Boykin Can Recycled Plastics be Used to Reduce Landfill Waste, Help Improve the Infrastructure of Buildings, Roads, Highways and Bridges and Reduce Greenhouse Gas? Exit

• 2009 Ryan Cherian Alexander Energy COOL: An Echo of Humming Wind? Exit