Tomás Markey

Tomás entered the Stripe Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition five times, with projects that grew steadily in ambition. His first two explored behavioural science: whether studying home economics reduced unhealthy eating habits, and whether strong pattern recognition skills correlated with exam performance.

In 2023, he and his team grew neurons in petri dishes and trained them to recognise sound patterns, winning their category in Biological & Ecological Sciences. From there, Tomás turned to climate solutions, developing a theoretical model for a cheaper, more accessible direct air capture system to remove carbon dioxide from the air. This earned him another category win and an EPA award in 2024. In 2025, he built a working prototype of the device, which won Best Overall Individual Project and the Analog Devices Award, and was later patented in the UK and Ireland.

After Stripe YSTE, Tomás won an award at Hack Ireland’s annual hackathon with Bundles—an online note-taking platform that promotes collaboration across organisations. He was named to Ireland’s 30 Under 30 list and received an Emergent Ventures grant. He is now studying design engineering at Imperial College London, where he enjoys the combination of hardware and software development.

Tomás’s advice to Stripe YSTE participants? “Start earlier each year. It gives you more time to be creative and explore different solutions, rather than rushing to pick one.”

Follow Tomás’s journey on LinkedIn and his website.

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