Laasya Acharya, an Ohio high school senior, inventor, and agriculture engineer, joins us on Closing the Gap!

In 2025, Laasya found herself a finalist in the prestigious Regeneron Science Talent Search, a STEM competition for high school seniors in the United States. After being inspired to help people affected by the devastation caused by food insecurity while on family trips to India, Laasya developed a drone system, centered around equity, to help farmers detect early stages of crop disease.

“I see a future where my pursuits in these fields will further bridge the gap between advocacy and STEM, a synergy that our world desperately needs,” said Laasya.

In addition to being a student, getting involved with the student and local governments, and leading the way as captain of her school’s science fair club, Laasya is also the founder of The Ceres Organization. The Ceres Organization aims to use technology, science, and advocacy to address real-world challenges, particularly in the realm of food insecurity.

Closing the Gap (CTG): Tell us about your educational journey. 

Laasya Acharya (LA): I’m so grateful to have had the support of my family in my research process! My parents and sister have always encouraged me to research and ask questions. My biology and environmental science teacher, Ms. Janecko, has greatly inspired my love of science! Though she was not directly involved with my project, she encouraged my love for environmental engineering in class and taught me the finer aspects of research methodology. My science fair advisor, Mrs. Young, was also a great mentor. She was not involved in the technical aspects of my project, but was incredibly helpful in my role as science fair captain. She guided me in planning science fairs and played an important part in encouraging me throughout my science fair journey. All of these people in my life have helped me participate in research and help me grow.

CTG: What are you researching?

LA: I essentially built a drone-AI system that’s able to detect crop diseases. The drone, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, flies around farms autonomously and captures image/video data of crops. It then passes this data to an onboard AI system that can analyze this data to provide a disease diagnosis right on the spot in the field. This is super helpful to farmers, as there aren’t any accurate, efficient detection systems available to the public as of right now. Early detection of crop diseases is really important to saving crops, as it helps farmers catch diseases earlier and gives them more time to take preventative measures to save crops.

CTG: Tell us how you became interested in combating food insecurity and what inspired you to pursue it.

LA: From a young age, I have always been interested in science and coding. My interest was first piqued when I was 7 years old and saw an ad for the EV3 Mindstorms kit in a magazine. Determined to get this kit for myself, I committed to a long summer of lemonade stands and finally had enough to buy the kit by the time school started. From there, I became obsessed with coding and robotics. I built a snake, an alarm clock, and even a robotic dog in a vain attempt to prove to my parents that I was responsible enough for a pet!

As for agricultural engineering specifically, my interest was piqued during a family trip to India. My family is ethnically from India, and so we often return there to visit family. During one particular trip, my family visited a local orange farm in a village a few miles away from our hometown. I noticed a massive amount of crop loss at this farm, and was shocked. After speaking with a few farmers, they informed that this was a yearly issue for them and that a major contributor to their crop loss was their lack of ability to detect crop disease early enough to take preventive measures. This was deeply concerning to me; just miles away from where people struggled to find their next meal, there was all this crop loss. So I started doing more research once I got back home and discovered this was a worldwide issue. Accurate and affordable early crop disease detection systems didn’t exist for farmers. So I began wondering if there was a way for me to create an accurate, efficient, and affordable system for the early detection of crop diseases by combining my interests in agriculture and computer science.

CTG: What do you think young women and gender minorities should know about your area of expertise? How can this help them as they prepare for the workforce? 

LA: Agricultural engineering is somewhat of a newer scientific field, so I would strongly encourage anyone interested in this field to get involved! The possibilities of the intersection of agricultural engineering and computer science are nearly endless and super interesting. The world of STEM can certainly be taunting to young women and gender minorities, but I would advise young students not to be deterred by that!

CTG: What advice can you give to young women and gender minorities who may be trying to navigate a career path similar to yours? 

LA: I think it can be difficult to be taken seriously in a science-based field, especially as a young woman. At a lot of science competitions I went to earlier on in my career, I had a massive sense of impostor syndrome, feeling like I didn’t belong in the room with all of these other incredibly smart students. I even had a lot of male students often come up to my project and attack my scientific findings. I struggled a lot with the self-confidence required to be a young woman in STEM for a few years, but it slowly began to fade with more experience. I think it’s important to remind yourself that you belong in these spaces with these other students – you’re not there simply by accident. It also really helped to meet other young women and gender minorities who were facing the same feelings I was. So I would advise young gender minorities and young women to keep their confidence and believe in themselves! Start building that community of other students who feel the same way now because they will be your support system even years later!

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