Terry Yu
2026 Eco-Hero
3rd PLACE
Terry Yu
Age 16
Livingston, New Jersey, USA
Students for a Greener Future: Growing Sustainable Change
At 16 years old, environmental chemist, community organizer, and youth advocate Terry Yu is bridging the gap between laboratory research and global grassroots climate action. Terry’s trajectory shifted profoundly during a visit to the East Orange Reservoir, a place once cherished for family picnics, where he witnessed an ecosystem in crisis. Instead of a vibrant aquatic refuge, he confronted a suffocating, pea-soup-colored film of explosive algal blooms caused by nutrient runoff and aging sewage infrastructure. While analyzing water samples at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Terry realized that identifying environmental damage through data was not enough. Driven by the conviction that "if science stays on paper, this water stays green," Terry looked beyond the lab toward civic application, founding the organization "Students for a Greener Future" (SFGF) in early 2023 to provide young people with the resources, mentorship, and funding needed to champion local ecosystems.
What began as a localized initiative in New Jersey has rapidly expanded under Terry's leadership into a massive international youth network spanning 18+ chapters across five continents. Mobilizing hundreds of active students from New Jersey to international hubs like Duino, Italy, Auckland, New Zealand, Singapore, and Dodoma, Tanzania, each chapter operates with autonomy tailored to regional environmental needs. The real-world impacts of these chapters are extensive: New Jersey members have cleared over 200 pounds of trash from local parks; students in St. Lucia launched massive school tree-planting competitions; and members in Yangon, Myanmar, donated recycling bins and hosted sustainability workshops for a local orphanage, directly teaching the children about environmental stewardship. To scale this message, Terry launched the #YouthForEarth social media campaign, which has reached more than 10,000 people and inspired hundreds of students to publicize their own environmental initiatives.
Managing an international organization across 11 time zones required Terry to design a highly structured leadership infrastructure. He handles global executive management through bimonthly check-ins to screen chapter applications and provide customized onboarding toolkits. To fuel these global operations, Terry secured 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsorship through Hack Club and raised over $1,000 in partnership with local non-profits to launch the Global Micro-Solutions Lab. This 10-to-12-week accelerator program provides direct grant funding to youth-led teams worldwide to help execute community-specific climate solutions, with concrete short-term plans to scale the program and develop stricter impact metrics.
Terry’s scientific acumen matches his extraordinary organizational leadership. As a High School Research Contributor in Professor Hao Chen’s lab at NJIT since 2022, he designed and collected real-world environmental samples, such as bottled water from PET plastic containers, contributing data to a breakthrough study on detecting microplastics and nanoplastics (MNPs) using Flame Ionization Mass Spectrometry (FI-MS). Terry was a co-author on the research paper published in the prestigious Journal of Hazardous Materials in 2025.
What makes Terry's work uniquely meaningful is its complete integration; rather than compartmentalizing his passions, he serves as a literal bridge between the scientific and the civic. He brings the lab directly into the community by speaking to global SFGF chapter leaders about the sustainability of local waterways using the exact insights gained from his environmental research. On campus, Terry channels his energy into local leadership as the President of the Chemistry Club, where he hosts science workshops for elementary students and Boy Scouts. An avid cross-country runner and volleyball player, Terry aims to build SFGF into a self-sustaining global network where chapters collectively collaborate on shared challenges like waste and climate resilience, while he pursues a future career at the intersection of environmental science, policy, and civil action.
"Leadership is not about doing everything yourself; it is about building systems that empower others to succeed. Environmental opportunities shouldn’t depend on where you live or how much you make. Every young person deserves the tools to make their community healthier."
