NEDERLAND - After his freshman year at Nederland High School, student Keahi Pelkum Donahue started a scientific research project. This was not a typical school research project. He was working with a scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

While in his junior year of high school, the project was finalized. Titled “Forecasting solar flares with a transformer network,” the work was peer-edited and published in the journal Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences. You can read Pelkum Donahue’s work here: doi.org/10.3389/fspas.2023.1298609. 

You may wonder why it is important to study solar flares. Pelkum Donahue put it this way: “Solar flares, which are intense bursts of light from the sun, can cause satellite orbits to decay by heating the atmosphere.

“In addition, powerful flares are often associated with other types of solar eruptions, which may harm astronauts, disrupt GPS, damage satellites, disrupt telecommunications, and damage power transformers. If we are able to predict these events ahead of time, we can better prepare for potential consequences and potentially uncover their understanding of their physical mechanisms.”

If solar flares can be predicted and understood better, then it is possible that less damage will be caused to our satellite communications, on which we all depend so heavily. 

This research led to recognition of Pelkum Donahue. He has presented his findings at the American Geophysical Union Conference 2023 in San Francisco (AGU23) and at AGU24 in Washington, DC.

This is an international earth and space science conference. At AGU23, he was selected from a pool of international applicants, high school through graduate school, to receive funding to present their work at the conference. 

Most recently, Pelkum Donahue was one of 300 high school seniors (and one of two Coloradans) to be named a 2025 Regeneron Science Talent Search scholar. This is the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors. It is for US high school seniors living in US, in US territories, or abroad. 

According to the Society of Science website, for this award “Scholars were chosen based on their outstanding research, leadership skills, community involvement, commitment to academics, creativity in asking scientific questions and exceptional promise as STEM leaders demonstrated through the submission of their original, independent research projects, essays and recommendations.”

This recognition grants a scholarship of $2,000 to the student and $2,000 to their school. It is for a student who “shows innovative solutions to great challenges that our world faces today.” 

Pelkum Donahue will be working with the Nederland High School science department to decide how to use the $2,000 that the school will receive. 

It is safe to say that Pelkum Donahue is just getting started. He has already begun his next research project—this time on solar wind.

He says, “I am studying how information flows in the solar wind, which is a constant stream of particles emanating from the sun throughout the solar system. This is important for understanding the fundamental physical behavior of disturbances or irregularities in the solar wind, and for informing future satellite missions.”

He will be taking this project, and his cello (he is also an accomplished musician), to Princeton University in the fall of 2025, where he will be studying plasma physics at the US Department of Energy Plasma Physics Laboratory. His excitement is palpable when he talks about being able to study at Princeton and at that laboratory and the subjects he wants to pursue.

Pelkum Donahue added, “I ultimately hope to study plasma physics and address the climate crisis by helping achieve nuclear fusion. It is a holy grail of energy production that is nearly infinitely efficient.”

Pelkum Donahue’s accomplishments and goals are a reminder of the amazing people who come from small towns and rural communities. He is not alone. He has been inspired by those around him and now he is an inspiration to us.