Harvard student creates renewable energy with help from her native American Samoa

As Massachusetts celebrates STEM Week, one Harvard freshman is standing out for her creative approach to renewable energy, using resources from the island where she grew up, oceans away.

Her name is Amelie Chen, and she's already thinking about how to power the future.

"I learned how to turn algae into biofuel in a $7 million lab at UC Berkeley, and that was throughout a summer program in my freshman year [of high school]," Chen said. "And I ended up creating biofuel in my kitchen with no lab."

Creating biofuel from coconuts and algae

Without access to expensive equipment, Chen improvised. She used coconut ash to extract the chemicals she needed, turning a local resource into a key ingredient for innovation.

"I was able to extract potassium iodide from the coconuts and use that to sep