About
Hi, my name is Aakash Manaswi, and I'm a junior at Lake Highland Preparatory School in Orlando, Florida. Since seventh grade I've led honeybee conservation research focused on a novel, eco-friendly CO₂-based treatment for the Varroa mite crisis, developed in collaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture, the University of Florida, and 3M. The system has been validated across 60 colonies at over 96% mite reduction, is the subject of a pending utility patent, and pairs with an AI detection platform I built that identifies mites at 98.6% accuracy.
Beyond the hive, I conduct environmental research with NASA satellite datasets at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and study long-term mental health outcomes among U.S. veterans at Yale School of Medicine, where I'm a first author on peer-reviewed publications. I've presented my research to global leaders as a youth delegate at COP29, COP30, and LCOY, and I work with county, state, and federal officials on pollinator protection policy.
I'm also the co-founder and CEO of the International Youth STEM Society, a network of 116 students across 24 countries that turns sustainable technologies into open-source deployment guides for underserved communities, and I founded the veteran beekeeping mentorship program run with Hives for Heroes, which supports 292 veterans using beekeeping to recover from PTSD and trauma. I'm honored to share some recent recognition: 1st place and the Peggy Scripps Award at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, and being named one of America's Top 10 Young Scientists. The full list is on the awards page.