RUSSELL — Elizabeth Hanechak, 18, of Russell has been awarded a $100,000 scholarship for her project, “Solving the Plastic Problem: Developing a Microbial System for the Bioremediation of Plastic Waste into Drinkable Water and Fertilizer Material.” The Davidson Fellows Scholarship is one of the nation’s most prestigious honors for students 18 and younger. Hanechak’s award is part of the program’s 25th anniversary year, which is granting a record $825,000 to 21 students nationwide.

Hanechak, who is in the first semester of her freshman year at Brandeis University in Waltham, where she is a double major in biochemistry and biological physics, said the scholarship may be used to pay for college over a ten-year period. “If I don’t use all the money for undergraduate, I can use it for a master

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