Bella George
Leilani Phan (9) proudly displays the robot that her robotics team designed at the beginning of this year in the lab at Kalani High School. "I’ve been doing robotics since 6th grade," she says. Phan got into robotics while at Washington Middle School before joining the team at Kalani in 2021. She's done robotics all four years of high school, but shifted her focus last year to science.
Kalani senior Leilani Phan placed 2nd in the Honolulu District Science Fair on Saturday, Feb. 22, for her study on heavy metal decontamination in anemones on Oahu’s south shores, which she worked on in a lab at the University of Hawai’i. She will travel to Columbus, OH, on May 10 to compete at the International Science and Engineering Fair.
“I haven’t fully committed to a college but I do have enough scholarships right now to do a double major in marine biology and mechanical engineering at UH,” she says.
She wants to stay in Hawai’i and do marine-related engineering because salaries in Hawai’i “are good for marinists,” she says.
Phan also joins Kalani senior Daniel Shiraki as one of 90 Hawai’i students selected for the 2025 U.S. Presidential Scholars Program.