Protect Hawaii’s Birds

Logan Lee is an 18-year-old student from Hawaii. He is working hard to protect the island's native birds. When he was in fourth grade, he visited a forest on the island and saw an i' iwi, a beautiful bird that is at risk. The bird is threatened by avian malaria. It is spread by mosquitoes and can be deadly to many bird species in Hawaii.

Logan wanted to help, so he began studying how to stop the spread of this disease. Scientists are fighting malaria with lab-grown mosquitoes. These mosquitoes carry a bacterium that makes them infertile. When they mate with wild mosquitoes, their eggs do not grow. This helps reduce the mosquito population over time.

However, there is a problem. Many lab mosquitoes do not survive well in the wild. Logan thought this might be because they don't have the same microbes that wild mosquitoes do. To solve this, he exposed the lab mosquitoes to microbes. These microbes were taken from the water where wild mosquitoes grow. The results were remarkable. The lab mosquitoes grew 18% faster and became 67% stronger. This could help scientists raise mosquitoes more quickly and improve their chances of surviving in the wild.

Logan's research earned him fourth place in the 2025 Regeneron Science Talent Search. "It's amazing to see a problem in my community and know I can do something about it," he says. "Often, problems feel too big to solve. But this project showed me that youth have the power to make a difference in their community."

Logan's next goal is to study how Hawaii's birds evolved. He wants to learn how one bird species can change into many different types. Each type has its own special beak for eating different foods. For example, the palila has a big beak for cracking seeds, while the i' iwi uses its long beak to feed on flower nectar. Logan is also interested in the genetic changes that helped these birds adapt to different environments.