Maunakea Scholars program celebrates 10-year anniversary

Waiakea High School's Maunakea Scholars for the 2025-2026 school year proudly display their awards for "telescope time," flanked by University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy Director Doug Simons and Maunakea Observatories Internship Coordinator Mary Beth Laychak. (Stefan Verbano/Tribune-Herald)

By Stefan Verbano for Hawaiʻi Tribune Herald

On first impression, Waiakea High School senior Aaron Lewis doesn’t exactly seem like a scientist.

He is tall and quiet, presumably more at home on a basketball court than in a laboratory — or, in this case, an observatory.

But Lewis was one of 14 newly minted Maunakea Scholars for the 2025-2026 school year during the program’s award ceremony on Tuesday, and will soon be heading up to the telescope array atop Hawaii Island’s tallest mountain to conduct research about the nature of Jupiter’s atmosphere using NASA’s 3.2-meter Infrared Telescope Facility.

Started during the 2015-2016 school year, Maunakea Scholars celebrates its 10-year anniversary this year. It’s an innovative, one-of-a-kind program giving public high school students across the state a competitive chance to conduct research at Maunakea’s telescope array — something the program’s administrators have affectionately dubbed “telescope time.”

Click here to read the full article published by Hawaiʻi Tribune Herald on Mar. 12.