Joint winner: Tianyi Mathur is in Year 13 at Wellington’s Scots College

Tianyi’s research project focused on how cells communicate with each other to create organised patterns.

Tianyi developed a computer simulation to mimic the process of communication between cells.

Judges saw significant potential to adapt Tianyi’s model for simulating coordinated, dynamic systems to optimise technology suited to the complex and often extreme conditions of space exploration.

Practical applications for the space sector could include biosensors, autonomous systems, or new materials that could organise or repair themselves automatically, which could be vital in spacecraft or in extraterrestrial environments, and would avoid the need for impractical traditional manufacturing infrastructure in space.