This is Eniola Shokunbi, the 12-year-old who secured $11.5m funding after building an air filter to reduce spread of air borne diseases

• Eniola Shokunbi became interested in improving air quality while in fifth grade.

• Her class built low-cost Corsi-Rosenthal air filters using common materials.

• Connecticut approved $11.5m in state support for the school air-filtration project.

• Eniola hopes to take the clean-air initiative to schools across the US and beyond.

At an age when many children are still figuring out what they want to be when they grow up, Eniola Shokunbi was already thinking about how to make classrooms safer.

The Nigerian-American student attracted international attention after helping lead a project to bring low-cost air filtration systems to schools in Connecticut, United States.

What makes the story even more striking is how simple the device is.

The air filter can be built with a box fan, four furnace filters, duct tape and cardboard for about $60, according to the American Lung Association. The device is a Corsi-Rosenthal box filter designed to improve indoor air quality by filtering airborne particles.

Eniola's journey began when she was a fifth-grade student at Commodore MacDonough STEM Academy in Middletown, Connecticut.

After reading about air filtration, she became interested in finding a way her school could use the technology. She researched the subject and wrote to Marina Creed, director of the University of Connecticut's Indoor Air Quality Initiative, asking for the plans so she and her classmates could build their own filter.

Creed provided the plans and later brought scientists to Eniola's classroom, where students learnt about air pollution and climate change and built the filters themselves.

The project soon attracted wider attention.

The Environmental Protection Agency and UConn tested the DIY air purifier in an EPA bioaerosol test chamber. UConn reported that the testing showed the device could remove more than 99 per cent of airborne viruses, including the virus that causes COVID-19, within 60 minutes under the test conditions.

The success of the project eventually led to a major financial commitment from the state.

In October 2024, Connecticut's State Bond Commission approved $11.5 million in state support for UConn's Indoor Air Quality Initiative to purchase materials and oversee the construction and installation of the low-cost air filters in public-school classrooms across the state.

Eniola says on her official website that she played a pivotal role in securing the grant and is working with UConn scientists on the project.

The funding is not money personally given to Eniola. Instead, it supports the statewide school air-filtration programme inspired in part by the work she helped champion.

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Eniola has continued advocating for cleaner air in schools and plans to visit other schools to teach students how to build their own filters. She hopes the idea can eventually reach classrooms across the United States and around the world.

For Eniola, the project is also about showing young people that they can solve problems around them.

“I believe it’s really important help people understand the importance of clean air and show them how easy it is to make an impact,” she said, according to the American Lung Association.

And she has ambitions far beyond air filtration.

Eniola has said she wants to become the first Black woman president of the United States. For now, however, the young innovator is focused on getting cleaner air into classrooms and encouraging other children to use science to solve problems in their communities.