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About the Award
The Climate Resilience Award within the Modeling the Future Challenge tasks America’s high school students to help communities become more resilient to natural disasters and climate change related risks to people and property. Guided by their teachers and mentored by the nation’s actuaries, data scientists, and climate science experts, students will identify community or regional climate risks, analyze data, develop mathematical models, and make informed recommendations on how to best mitigate or manage risks to the community.
To be eligible for the Climate Resilience Award, MTFC teams must conduct a project that analyzes climate change related risks to a community or local region and identifies actionable recommendations to mitigate or manage those risks.
Teams wishing to be considered for the Climate Resilience Award will submit a short addendum to their MTFC Project Reports responding to several implementation related prompts about how they would consider taking their project beyond the analytical into real-world implementation.
Awards
Finalists: A selection of teams will be recognized as Climate Resilience Award finalists to present their projects to a special panel of Climate Resilience experts in live, virtual Q&A judging sessions.
Climate Resilience Award Winner: one team will be selected and announced as the Climate Resilience Award winner during the MTFC Symposium award ceremony. The winning team members will each receive a part-time, paid summer internship with a $1,500 stipend (up to $7,500 for a team of five students).
Summer Implementation Internship
Student members of the award winning team will participate in a part-time virtual summer internship in which they will be guided through refining the implementation plan and community recommendations for their project.
The summer implementation internship will result in a presentation to community climate resilience stakeholders and decision makers (city council members, government officials, climate resilience officers, FEMA leaders, etc…). The summer internship process consists of an 8-10-week project period including:
- Project review meetings with the MTFC administration every other week.
- A series of 2 to 3 mentorship sessions with climate resilience leaders.
- A project presentation for the team to present their idea to make the community more resilient to the risks posed by an increasingly harsh climate.
About the Sempra Foundation
Sempra Foundation was founded in 2007 by Sempra and has invested over $50 million to help advance a better future for all. Sempra Foundation’s current priorities include climate action, economic prosperity, diversity and inclusion and disaster relief. Additionally, the organization encourages community engagement among the 20,000 employees who work for Sempra and its operating companies by matching certain employee contributions of time and money to eligible 501(c)(3) charitable organizations. Learn more at SempraFoundation.org.
2026 Award Winner:
Seven Lakes High School
Katy, TX
Andy Chen
Kushagra Nagar
Archith Manduva
Aaron Wu
Coach: Joshua Andrews
“Sink or Swim: Hurricane-Induced Property Price Fluctuations in the Gulf Coast”
2025 Award Winner:
Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Inverness, IL
William Guo
Coach: Jenna Lee
