JCCC Students Named as Finalists in U.S. Department of Energy AlgaePrize Competition

August 2, 2024

The AlgaePrize competition fosters workforce development and training as student teams shape the global future of algae production, processing, and innovation.

A Johnson County Community College (JCCC) student organization, the Chlorella Cavaliers, was recently named as one of fifteen finalist teams in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) AlgaePrize.

The AlgaePrize competition is sponsored by the DOE Bioenergy Technologies Office and supported by the Algae Foundation and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The competition challenges high school, community college, college, university, and graduate school students from across the United States to research and develop technologies in the commercial algae sector.

The AlgaePrize empowers students across the United States to highlight the resource potential of algae to produce billions of gallons of economical, renewable diesel and jet fuel each year. Products made from algae are a natural solution to the energy, food, economic, and climate challenges facing our world today. Algae can fuel our vehicles, recycle carbon dioxide, provide nutritious food for humans and animals, and create thousands of jobs nationwide.

The Chlorella Cavaliers are led by JCCC Professor of Biology, Heather Seitz, Ph. D. Seitz teaches courses in microbiology, biotechnology, and molecular biology. In the Fall of 2023, Seitz invited students from her classes to research and develop a novel strain of Chlorella algae. Seitz and the students are working to introduce a plastic-degrading enzyme to Chlorella to enable it to improve water quality in ecosystems.

The Chlorella Cavaliers will submit their final proposal in March 2025. In April 2025, the students will travel to the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado, to present their findings. The panel of expert judges will select their top five finalists from the fifteen teams, and those five teams will participate in another presentation round that weekend. The winning team will be selected after the second round.

The winning team of AlgaePrize 2023-2025 will receive a $25,000 prize. The top five finalist teams will receive a $10,000 prize. The top fifteen finalist teams receive an $8,000 award for research and $2,000 to cover travel to Golden, CO.

This is the second AlgaePrize Competition, and the first that is a 2-year research project. The winner of AlgaePrize 2022-2023 was a team of graduate students from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The complete list of finalists for AlgaePrize 2023-2025 are, in alphabetical order:

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