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Eleven Fairfax County Public Schools students earned category or special awards at the International Science and Engineering Fair held in Columbus, Ohio, during the week before May 19, 2025.
The local students were among more than 1,700 competitors representing 67 countries, regions and territories. Approximately $9 million in awards and scholarships were available at the event.
Oliver Wang of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology took first place in Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design for “Hydrogel Thermal Management for Solar Efficiency.”
Langley High School students Bennet Huang and Jason Pan also secured a first-place award. Their project, “Autonomous AI-Guided MeJA-Integrated Pest Control,” competed in Environmental Engineering.
Chloe Giglio of McLean High School placed fourth in Biomedical and Health Sciences with “VISTA Inhibitor CA170 Synergizes with KRAS Vaccine in Lung Cancer.”
Thomas Jefferson student Sarah Park earned fourth place in Biomedical Engineering for “SVM-Enhanced Infrared Spectroscopy for Noninvasive Blood Glucose Monitoring.” Park also received a scholarship from NC State to attend its summer engineering camp for her work on AI-powered infrared spectroscopy and noninvasive blood-glucose monitoring.
Anush Devkar and Ansh Malhotra, also from Thomas Jefferson, placed third in Embedded Systems for “BrailleSense: A Modular, Low-Cost Solution for Accessible Braille Displays.”
Oakton High School’s Thomas Sparling won third place in Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design for “Micro Closed-Loop, Pumped, Hydro-Power System Turbine Assessment.”
Thomas Jefferson students Nikhil Krishna and Nived Nandakumar received fourth place in Physics and Astronomy. Their project used an integrated three-model machine-learning framework to identify space debris, predict its orbit and evaluate collision risks.
Marshall High School student Alina Albeik received a $750 special award from Mary Kay for “Implications of Resveratrol on Memory Retention in Dugesia tigrina.”
In all, 18 Fairfax County students traveled to Columbus after qualifying through the Fairfax Regional Science and Engineering Fair, the Virginia State Science and Engineering Fair, or both.