Irish student Maura Moore-McCune from The King’s Hospital School in Palmerstown, Co. Dublin achieved international recognition after representing Ireland at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) 2025 in Columbus, Ohio. Maura placed fourth in the Biomedical Engineering category and also received the Mawhiba Universal Enrichment Program Award.
The Regeneron ISEF, which took place from 10 to 16 May, is the world’s largest international pre-college science competition. This year’s event marked the fair’s 75th anniversary and welcomed approximately 1,600 students from around 60 countries, regions, and territories. Competitors vied for a total prize fund of almost $9 million.
Maura secured her place at the global competition after winning the overall award at the SciFest 2024 National Final. Her project, titled “A Device for Detecting Fast-Moving Objects for Use by the Vision Impaired,” impressed judges with its practical focus and innovative use of emerging technologies.
Drawing on her own experience as a vision-impaired student, Maura developed a solution aimed at improving safety and independence for people with visual impairments. The project explored two complementary design approaches using machine learning. The first was a mobile application that uses image classification to alert users to fast-moving objects in their surroundings. The second involved a smart glasses prototype that uses a YOLOv8 model in conjunction with OpenCV to estimate object speed in real time.
In addition to her category award, Maura was recognised by the Mawhiba Universal Enrichment Program, a Saudi Arabian non-profit foundation that supports and encourages young people worldwide to pursue innovation across a wide range of fields.
Maura’s success highlights the strength of Ireland’s STEM talent and demonstrates how student-led research can deliver meaningful, inclusive solutions to real-world challenges.
