Education standouts
Santa Fe Community College’s student biofuels team, Just AD Algae, is one of 15 finalists in the national AlgaePrize 2023-2025 Competition.
The announcement came from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office.
The SFCC team members received $10,000 for their project and will spend about 15 months working on their research. In the spring of 2025, the finalists will participate in the AlgaePrize Competition Weekend Event at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo.
AlgaePrize is a national competition that encourages students to pursue innovative ideas for the development, design and invention of technologies.
The SFCC team’s adviser, college Innovation Center Director Ondine Frauenglass, said the team proposes to increase the biogas output of a smallscale anaerobic digester by using algae mixed with waste products such as used cooking oil. The college has a biodigester on campus that converts kitchen waste into clean biogas that can be used for cooking and heating and as liquid biofertilizer.
The Truchas Chapter of Trout Unlimited has awarded its inaugural college scholarship to Fabian Larranaga ,a
2024 senior class member at Monte del Sol Charter School in Santa Fe.
The Truchas Chapter College Scholarship Fund was created to recognize academic excellence in the studies of science, technology, engineering and math by college-bound public high school seniors in the greater Santa Fe area.
Fabian will use his $2,600 scholarship to pursue an electrical engineering degree at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology with a focus on solar energy generation.