Article Text
Nine Fairfax County Public Schools students earned awards at the 2026 International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, including two Langley High School students who secured one of the competition’s top 10 honors.
Bennett Huang and Jason Pan received the European Union Contest for Young Scientists Award, giving them the opportunity to travel to Germany and compete in the 2026 European Contest for Young Scientists.
The Langley students also won first place in Environmental Engineering for a project that combined methyl jasmonate-based plant defenses with an autonomous precision-spraying robot for targeted pest control.
Seven other FCPS students placed in their respective categories:
- Madison High School’s Julia Hatcher earned fourth place in Animal Sciences for studying how lead concentrations in simulated vape e-liquid affect the movement and fertility of C. elegans.
- Sarah Park of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology received fourth place in Biomedical Engineering for developing AI-powered origami millirobots for targeted therapeutics.
- TJHSST student Jack Gao took third place in Earth and Environmental Science for TorSight, a project designed to move tornado technology from detection toward prediction using pre-tornadic signatures.
- Chantilly High School students Benjamin Kwon and Utsav Das earned third place in Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design for examining how pendulum configurations influence energy-harvesting efficiency under different wave conditions.
- Marshall High School’s Parham Yeganeh received third place in Physics and Astronomy for exploring the motion-induced quicksand effect with vertical rotation.
- Marshall student Polina Anfilofyev earned fourth place in Translational Medical Sciences for creating a spatiotemporal, agent-based model of combination therapy in the hippocampus to optimize Alzheimer’s treatment.
Anfilofyev also received an organizational special award from the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications for the same Alzheimer’s treatment project. The Outstanding Award includes a cash prize, a complimentary one-year COMAP membership and free entry into one of three mathematical modeling competitions.
Fifteen FCPS students participated in the international fair after qualifying through the Fairfax County Regional Science and Engineering Fair, the Virginia State Science and Engineering Fair or both.
More than 1,700 students representing over 70 countries, regions and territories competed for approximately $9 million in awards and scholarships at the Phoenix event.