Ardent Scholars choose their own research questions and develop them with mentor guidance. Some return for multiple years, taking on more ambitious projects as their experience grows.
Marine Science · Computer Vision
Bradley built a two-phase system that grades coral bleaching across five levels of severity and forecasts reef health twelve weeks out, using free computational tools.
Microbiology · Antibiotic Resistance
Rene continued the research she began at Ardent in 2025, building a home lab to carry it further.
Biomaterials · Cell Biology
Cybersecurity · Machine Learning
Biochemistry · Pharmacology
Genetics · Evolutionary Biology
Astronomy · Machine Learning
Working from NASA light-curve data, Bradley compared computational methods and found the simpler decision tree outperformed the neural network he expected to win.
Agriculture · Machine Learning
Microbiology
Microbiology · Antibiotic Resistance
Renewable Energy · Physics
Social Science · Public Policy
Environmental Engineering · Microbiology
Environmental Engineering · Detection Systems
Genomics · Computational Biology
Wildfire Science · Machine Learning
Neuroscience · Speech Analysis
Microbiology · Plant Science
Biomedical Science · Pharmacology
Cognitive Science · Neuroscience
Inspired by her experience with virtual dance classes, Clara investigated brain activity during virtual and in-person learning.
Cognitive Science
Environmental Science
Computational Biology
Marine Science · Climate Modeling
Interested in marine environments, Hailey used climate modeling to investigate how changing ocean conditions could affect future hypoxia and acidification.
Environmental Engineering · Machine Learning
Ryan’s interest in environmental engineering led him to develop a machine-learning-driven sensor system for wildfire detection and growth prediction.
Pranav Moudgalya
From a sixth-grade project to Harvard, then back for a summer at Ardent
Pranav’s first research project was done at the kitchen table. He went on to compete in science fairs every year from sixth grade, winning seven times, reaching the state competition each year and ISEF twice. His research later took him into university labs and competitive summer programs. After attending Harvard, he returned to Ardent for one summer in 2023 as a research mentor and assistant director.
Watch his lecture to Ardent Scholars → seven projects, 28 minutes
Amy and Jack
From an engineering project to a student venture
Amy and Jack began with a problem they had seen firsthand: coordinating volunteers for a student-run community service organization. Their engineering project produced a working prototype. Other volunteers kept using it after the program ended, so they expanded the team and developed it into a venture for other organizations. The project later won second place and $7,000 at the national Diamond Challenge.
Three broadcast reports on students Dr. Li has worked with, over fifteen years.
After her aunt’s breast cancer was found at stage three, a student built an algorithm to detect breast and skin cancer earlier. It carried her to an international conference in Italy. ABC7 interviewed Dr. Li as her research mentor.
Watch the report →Dr. Li helped shape the original idea and assembled the engineering team behind the prototype, built for a teen entrepreneurship competition. ABC7 later covered the twins teaching coding for free in Santa Ana. The project outlived the competition.
Watch the report →A high-school senior simulated tumor-cell motility and won a $10,000 Davidson Fellowship, mentored for two years at UC Irvine by Professor John Lowengrub after taking university math from seventh grade. The university-lab route, from the inside.
Watch the report →