The Straubel Foundation’s annual Leadership Awards recognize the best in achievement and leadership potential. They are also one of the ways in which the Foundation supports young leaders and scholars as they develop sustainable solutions to environmental and societal challenges. The year of 2020 has pressed the need to recognize and accelerate the support for leaders striving to uplift society.
Please join us in welcoming our 2020 cohort of Straubel Impact Leaders and Straubel Engineers of the Future.
2020 STRAUBEL IMPACT LEADERS
Tiffany Yu
A social impact entrepreneur and disability rights advocate, Tiffany is on a mission to increase intersectional disability representation and democratize visibility. She is founder and CEO of Diversability. She is also the Founder of Awesome Foundation Disability Chapter, which raises monthly micro-grants for disability projects ($41.5k granted to 42 projects in 8 countries) and the host of TIFFANY & YU. Tiffany also serves on the San Francisco Mayor’s Disability Council, appointed by San Francisco Mayor London Breed in 2019. Tiffany was Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Sustainable Development Impact Summit in 2020 and was named a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum in 2018.
See Tiffany’s awards and achievements below.
Kostadin Nedev
An aeronautical and aerospace engineer and Senior Air Force Pilot, Kostadin is Founder of Youth Inventor, a STEM educational platform providing free, beginner-level tutorials in engineering and programming. Kostadin teaches through a pragmatic hands-on approach that encourages young people to repair and revive broken electronics and equipment in order to expend the lifetime of products we use. He actively evangelises CO@ avoidance through consumption reduction. Kostadin completed the Aviation Leadership Program at United States Air Force in 2019, and is the recipient of the Commander’s Coin Award from United States Air Force and the Academic Award of Excellence from the National Military University in Veliko Turnovo.
See Kostadin’s awards and achievements below.
Catherine Kollhoff
A chemical engineer and a former consultant, Catherine developed expertise in safe and sustainable hazardous waste processing in her 10+ years of experience. Today, as the CEO of NUMiX Materials, Catherine is leading her team in developing sorbents to harvest dissolved critical metals from contaminated process streams. The platform of unique materials enables recovery of valuable metals while minimizing chemical requirements reducing hazardous waste disposal costs and keeping communities and the environment safe. Catherine is also a Master of Engineering Management student and a safety engineer at Northwestern University.
See Catherine’s awards and achievements below.
Julian O'Shea
A social entrepreneur and an engineer, Julian is Founder and CEO of Unbound, an enterprise offering practice-based learning programs for entrepreneurs and university students with a focus on sustainability, entrepreneurship and social impact design. Julian’s work pioneered in designing and implementing educational experiences that address pressing real-world problems, from combating climate change in Fiji to studying United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in Vietnam. Julian was named one of Australia’s Most Innovative Engineers by Create Magazine and he was the inaugural Westpac Social Change Fellow. He also once set a Guinness World Record for a 3,700+ km rail journey across China.
See Julian’s awards and achievements below.
Yotam Ariel
An avid entrepreneur and Founder and CEO of Bluefield Technologies, Yotam and his team developed proprietary algorithms that use micro-satellites & AI to track methane emissions data. The efficient analytics generated by Yotam’s Bluefield help protect trillions of dollars of assets and millions of lives that are currently at risk. In his previous venture, Yotam helped in bringing electricity to tens of thousands of people in remote regions, all while reducing greenhouse gases. Yotam Majored in Chinese & Business and graduated Summa Cum Laude from Xiamen University in China. He speaks 6 languages and was a national champion in sailing.
See Yotam’s awards and achievements below.
Boryana Uzunova
An entrepreneur committed to bringing sustainability to the fashion industry, Boryana is Co-Founder of Kool and Konscious, a marketplace for sustainable and ethical fashion, and Impakt_ID, a technology company that pioneers solutions that assess environmental impact of fashion on a product level and assist brands to offset their their footprint and achieve an environmentally-neutral industry. Boryana was named in 2019 as Forbes 30 under 30 entrepreneurs changing the world and has received various awards and scholarships from London School of Economics and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
See Boryana’s awards and achievements below.
Andrew Diep-Tran
At the age of 16, Andrew founded operationEconomics International a chapter-based nonprofit globalizing equitable economic education access for underserved students. The organization develops unique and engaging curricula for elementary, middle and high school low income communities around the globe. Chapters include 11 in the US and 6 globally, including in Australia, Zimbabwe and United Arab Emirates. Andrew also founded FIBE (Finance, Investments, Business and Economics) Fellowship at his high school, implementing two annual entrepreneurship competitions. He also organized his school’s first ever youth TEDx event.
See Andrew’s awards and achievements below.
Salvador Gómez-Colón
An advocate for effective disaster relief, Salvador understands the urgency of community needs such as electricity and clean water at time of disasters. In response to Hurricane María that devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, Salvador created the "Light and Hope for Puerto Rico" campaign, which distributed solar-powered lamps and hand-powered washing machines to over 3,500 underserved families. Salvador also led disaster-relief missions including in The Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian struck in 2019. Salvador was recognized as one of Time Magazine’s “Most Influential Teens of 2017,” and in early 2019 he received the "President's Environmental Youth Award" and the "Diana Award" for his socio-humanitarian work.
See Salvador’s awards and achievements below.
Ernesto Nam Song
Committed to the power of volunteering to elevate society, Ernesto founded Englobar, a non-profit enterprise that seeks to relieve poverty by empowering youth volunteers to engage and contribute to communities in need. Englobar offers lessons in math, environmental sciences and other social impact topics through a network of 250+ volunteers. It operates in Paraguay and México and is seeking to expand in Latin America. Ernesto is an incoming freshman at Stanford University and he is one of 25 students in Latin America selected to attend the Latin American Leadership Academy. He is Paraguay Math Olympiad champion holding two gold medals and four silver medals.
See Ernesto’s awards and achievements below.
2020 STRAUBEL ENGINEERS OF THE FUTURE
Neha Shukla
At the age of 15 and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Neha invented SixFeetApart, a wearable device with ultrasonic motion sensor that buzzes when someone comes within six feet of the person. With the help of Girls With Impact, Neha developed the prototype and now is engaging companies to refine the product. She has also filed for a patent and is working on upgrading the technology to include voice commands. Neha is the valedictorian of her class of 800 students (top 0.125%) and first-place winner of several competitions including the Capital Area Science and Engineering Fair (2018, 2019, 2020) and Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science Fair (2018, 2019, 2020).
See Neha’s awards and achievements below.
Perisa Ashar
At the age of 16, Perisa started “STEMinate,” through which she hosts coding, robotics and chemistry workshops for elementary and middle school students. Perisa also developed a website that includes tutorials on coding and making DIY science kits. Perisa was inspired to start her work after learning about the under-representation of women and African Americans in STEM fields. She is a winner of the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) Aspirations in Computing Award and she is the Presidential Volunteer Recipient (Gold Level) in international “Prudential Spirit of Community Awards”.
See Perisa’s awards and achievements below.
Laura Taylor-Kale
A Ph.D. student in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University, Laura has built expertise in the intersectionality of development economics, foreign policy, and technological change. As a senior presidential appointee, she served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Manufacturing in the U.S. Department of Commerce and a senior advisor at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (then OPIC). She began her career as a U.S. State Department diplomat working in South Asia and Africa before working as the World Bank. She was a visiting lecturer at Princeton University, where she completed a Master's degree in Public Affairs with a concentration in Demography and International Development. Laura also was an International Affairs Fellow and Deputy Director of the Task Force on the Future of US Workforce at the Council on Foreign Relations. She also was 2018 Zhi-Xing China Eisenhower Fellow and studied Chinese innovation in artificial intelligence.
See Laura’s awards and achievements below.
Shloka Janapaty
A current engineering student at Columbia University, Shloka started her work on solving the plastic waste problem while in high school. She found in her research during junior year that a white fungus can break down low-density polyethylene, thus, accelerating the degradation of plastics used in bags and packaging materials. Shloka was one of 15 national finalists invited to the International BioGENEius Challenge in 2018. She was the winner of the California Life Sciences Institute 2018 Amgen Bay Area BioGENEius Challenge and has received the Equitable Excellence Scholarship for 2020. Shloka is also 2019 Research Science Institute scholar.
See Shloka’s awards and achievements below.
Akua McLeod
An electric engineering senior at Stanford University, Akua is committed to the environmental sciences and energy research. She is a Researcher at the Stanford Undergraduate Program in Energy Research (SUPER) and has recently interned in the Power Electronic Controls division at Caterpillar Inc. Akua was also a Fellow at California Energy Commission and an intern at CodeSpace Academy where she designed Sonic Pi music-based coding curriculum for CodeSpace Tech Leaders Camp. She is currently the Outreach Co-Chair of the Society of Black Scientist and Engineers (SBSE) at Stanford and the Jackie Robinson Foundation Scholar.
See Akua’s awards and achievements below.
Ana María Tárano
A Ph.D. candidate in Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering at Stanford University, Ana’s research focuses on assessing steroid impact threat by using machine-learning techniques to improve asteroid modeling. She is the recipient of NASA Ames Honor Award, Near-Earth Object (NEO) and NASA Group Achievement Award. She is the recipient of several fellowships including Dean’s Packard Diversity Fellowship, Sharon Kay Stanaway Award, and Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education Fellowship. At Stanford, Ana is the Diversity and Advocacy Committee co-chair and Graduate Student Council School of Engineering representative.
See Ana’s awards and achievements below.
Other Awards and Achievements
Tiffany Yu
2020 Center for Social Impact Strategy (CSIS) Global Social Impact House fellowship
2019 OBO 100 Most Innovative Leaders for leading a people-first company
2019 CA Miss Amazing queen, serving as an ambassador for girls and women with disabilities
Global Disability Inclusion Lead, WEF Global Shapers on Equity & Inclusion
2018 Summit Social Impact Fellow
Gates Foundation Goalkeepers 2019 for the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals
2018 Susan M. Daniels Disability Mentoring Hall of Fame
2018 Davos 50 Global Shaper at the World Economic Forum
100 most influential Asian Americans of 2017
2017 Comcast 5 female changemakers to watch
2016 Real Leaders Magazine 100 visionary leaders
2016 Recipient of full scholarship for coding bootcamp at NY Code + Design Academy
2016 NY Business Journal Women of Influence
2010 Graduated cum laude from Georgetown University
Kostadin Nedev
2019 International Training Award, United States Air Force
2018 Commander’s Coin Award, United States Air Force
2017 Best alpine skier Award, Ministry of Defense
2016 Academic Award of Excellence, National Military University, Veliko Turnovo
2016 Academic & Leadership Award, Dolna Mitropolia Municipality
2013 Kan Kubrat’s Sword Award, Minister of Defense
2013 Student of the Year Award, National Student’s Council
2009 Best Computer Developer Award, Smolyan Municipality
Catherine Kollhoff
2020 Inaugural US Bank Cleantech Inclusion Award Winner
2019 ORISE Fellow 2019 Argonne National Lab
Chain Reaction Innovations Cohort 3 (1 out of 5 selected from a field of over 120)
2018-2019 VentureWell E-Team
2018 Department of Energy Cleantech University Prize - (2nd out of 23 teams)
2018 Rice Business Plan Competition - Semifinalist and Cleantech Prize Winner
2018 Northwestern University VentureCat Competition Winner (1st out of 25 teams)
2017 MEMPC Business War Games Winner
Julian O'Shea
2020 Australian Government – PhD Scholarship RTP
2019 Australia’s Most Innovative Engineers (Create Magazine)
2019 Guinness World Record – Highest Altitude 3D Printing (5,240m, Cerro Toco, Chile)
2019 Good Design Award – SolarTuk Expedition
2019 Tony Adams Rising Star Award – International Education Association of Australia
2017 Premier’s Design Award Nepal Innovation Program
2017 Professional Engineer of the Year, Victoria
2017 Pank Prize for Social Innovation, University of South Australia
2016 Social Change Fellowship, Westpac Scholars
2014 Young Australian of the Year for South Australia
2014 James McWha Award: Outstanding Alumni Awards
Dunlop Fellowship, Asialink Leaders Program (2014)
2013 Commonwealth Youth Award for Excellence in Development
2012 Young Social Pioneer Foundation for Young Australians
2012 Pearson Fellowship for Social Innovation – TakingITGlobal
2012 Australian Leadership Award – Future Summit, ADC Forum
2011 St Louise de Marillac Award for Social Justice through Leadership and Service
Yotam Ariel
Winner of Harvard and MIT organized ATEC startup competition
Winner of IEEE Next Star
Keeling Curve Prize finalist
2017 NewSpace People Top 3 Leaders Award
Designed a cleantech product which received recognition from President Obama
Boryana Uzunova
2020 WWF International Presidential’s Youth Awardee
2020 TEDx speaker
2019 Forbes 30 under 30 entrepreneurs changing the world
2019 Vroom Challenge Winner
2019 Slingshot Finalist
2019 Liveability Challenge Finalist
2018 Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Academic Excellence Award
Top 1% 2017 Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Academic Excellence Award
Merit Full Scholarship Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Merit Full Scholarship London School of Economics
John C Phelan Scholarship recipient (0.6% in class)
Andrew Diep-Tran
National Liberty Museum’s TD Bank Young Heroes Award (1 of 14 nationally)
National Council of Teachers of English Superior Writing Award (1 of 137 nationally)
San Diego County’s 25 Most Remarkable Teens
America’s Promise Alliance Power of Youth Challenge Grantee
Yale University Book Award (given to 1 out of 665 in junior grade)
Rochester Institute of Technology Innovation & Creativity Award (1 out of 665)
University of Rochester George Eastman Young Leaders Award ( 1 of 665)
Cardinal Scholar and AP Scholar with Distinction
2x Mission Hills High School Boys’ Varsity Tennis Team Most Valued Player
Youngest Boys’ Tennis Captain in School History
Salvador Gómez-Colón
Speaker – The Aspen Institute – A Conversation with Secretary Madeleine Albright and Youth
Real-life superhero of Marvel's Hero Project on Disney+ (1 out of 20 heroes)
Podcast Episode - BBC Sounds "We Can Change the World: Light and Hope with Salvador"
World Economic Forum's "10 Teenage Changemakers"
President's Environmental Youth Award
Keynote Speaker - Solar Power International
Keynote Speaker and Delegate – Inaugural International Congress of Youth Voices
Phillips Academy Scholarship for Youth
TIME Magazine's 30 Most Influential Teens
Elected President of National Junior Honor Society: Mercedes Higuera Chapter
Principal's Award for Sterling Character, Service, Academics, and Leadership
Ernesto Nam Song
Leland Scholars Program at Stanford University
Latin American Leadership Academy
Scholarship recipient from Shawn Mendes Foundation for the Global Citizen Academy
Featured Speaker of Paraguayan Independence Day Celebrations for Alto Paraná
Paraguay National Math Olympiad: 2 gold, 4 silver, and 2 bronze medals
Nine times Alto Parana State Champion (top 1%)
De Mayo International Math Olympiad: Honorable Mentions Recipient (top 15% internationally)
Head of Holy Week TECHO Construction (year’s biggest construction) . 1st teen to lead college-students construction. (TECHO is a non-profit focused on alleviating extreme poverty by building emergency housing)
Neha Shukla
Valedictorian of class of 800 (top 0.125%)
National BroadCom MASTERS Nominee (top 3% of middle school students)
1st Place at Capital Area Science and Engineering Fair (2018, 2019, 2020)
1st Place a Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science (2018, 2019, 2020)
Stockholm Junior Water Prize
Regional 2020 Woodmen Life Award Featured in the New York Times
Perisa Ashar
3X Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF)
2020 National Center for Women & Information Tech (NCWIT) Computing Award (40 of 4060+)
Finalist in international 2020 Junior Science and Humanities Symposium
Panelist 2020 International Space Station Research and Development Conference
One of 20 alternates out of 2,000 applicants for the Research Science Institute (RSI) program
2019 Intel ISEF Fair to represent the USA at the Taiwan International Science Fair
3rd Place Grand Award Winner in the Biomedical and Health Sciences Category at the 2018 Intel ISEF Fair
3X Grand Award Winner and 5x 1st Place Winner of the Regional Metro Richmond STEM Fair
Top Senior Project Winner of Biology Category and Gold Medal Awardee (top 1.25%) at the InspoScience Research and Innovation Fair
Renewable scholarship and Merit Scholarship from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)
Grand Award recipient (one of three) selected statewide in Virginia JSHS (later advanced to the International JSHS competition)
Finalist at international GENIUS Olympiad STEM Competition (79+ countries)
Distinguished Finalist of the International Prudential Spirit of Community Awards
2017 Top 300 MASTERS in national Broadcom Competition (top 0.5% of middle school science fair participants)
State Merit Winner of Virginia in national 2017 Discovery/3M Young Scientist Challenge
Laura Taylor-Kale
2021 Truman National Security Fellow
2018 Stanford Vice Provost for Graduate Education Enhancing Diversity Fellowship
2018-2021 Stanford Engineering Graduate Fellowship
2018 Member of Markle Foundation Rework America Task Force
2018 Advisory Board Member, Rockefeller Global Development & Economic Opportunity Fund
2018 Edward Bullard Alumni Award from Princeton University
2018 Co-authored Council on Foreign Relations publication “The Work Ahead: Machines, Skills and U.S. Leadership in the Twenty-First Century”
NY University Stern School of Business, Executive MBA (Recognized by Dean during Graduation Ceremony for Outstanding Achievements)
2016 Appointed by White House as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Manufacturing at the U.S. Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration
2015 Selected by White House for Presidential Leadership Workshop
2015 Received Letter of Commendation from President Obama for outstanding service
2014 Senior Executive Service Appointment in Presidential Administration of Barack H. Obama
2010-2011 First U.S. State Department Foreign Service Officer serving as Advisor to U.S. Executive Director, Board of the World Bank Group
2009-2014 Nominated and Selected as Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations
2003-2012 U.S. State Department Foreign Service Officer (Diplomat) serving in India, Cote D’Ivoire, Afghanistan, & Washington DC ( Meritorious Honor Awards in 2005, 2006, & 2009)
1998 Thomas R Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship (one of 16 undergraduates nationally)
1998 David Boren Fellowship for Wolof Language Study in Senegal
Shloka Janapaty
AXA Achievement Scholar
2nd Place, International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF)
1st Place / BoC, California Science and Engineering Fair (CSEF)
State Champion, California Stockholm Junior Water Prize (SJWP)
Regional Finalist, Google Science Fair
Special Congressional Recognition
Runner-up, International BioGENEius Challenge
Akua McLeod
Jackie Robinson Foundation Scholar
2017, 2018, 2019 Academic Award of Excellence, Stanford BCSC Annual Awards Ceremony
2016-2017 Nomination Stanford IntroSem Excellence Award
2015 Bausch and Lomb Honorary Science Award
2015 Cum Laude Society
Ana María Tárano
2019 Community Impact Award, Stanford Alumni Association
2019 Champion Advocate Award, Associated Students of Stanford University
2019 Elected Diversity and Advocacy Committee co-chair, Stanford University
2019 Elected Graduate Student Council School of Engineering representative
2018 NASA's Group Achievement Award, Asteroid Threat Assessment Project, NASA
2018 Fashion Design Competition winner, Anderson et la mode, Anderson Collection
2017 NASA Ames Honor Award, Near-Earth Object (NEO) Science Definition Team (SDT)
Since 2016 Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education Doctoral Fellowship, Stanford University
2016 Sharon Kay Stanaway Award Summer Doctoral Fellowship, Stanford University
2016 Travel Fellowship Grant Award, USNC-URSI North American Radio Science Meeting
2015 Dean’s Packard Diversity Fellowship, Stanford University School of Engineering
2013 Outstanding Leadership Award, School of Engineering
2013 Academic Excellence Community Award, Stanford University