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Two Fairfax County Public Schools students earned grand prizes at the 2026 Virginia Science and Engineering Fair, advancing their projects to an international competition in Phoenix.
Daniil Prokofev and Harshpreet Singh, both students at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, received the fair’s top honors. Prokofev presented “From SMILES to Synergy: Overcoming Drug Resistance in ER+ Breast Cancer,” while Singh entered “Real-Time Magnetic Field Modeling using Physics Infused Neural Operators.”
Their projects qualified for the International Science and Engineering Festival, scheduled for May 10-15 in Phoenix, Arizona.
The state fair was held April 11 at the Bolick Center on Piedmont Virginia Community College’s campus in Charlottesville. Fifty-seven FCPS students participated.
Category awards
FCPS students also received the following category honors:
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Animal Sciences: Julia Hatcher of Madison High School won first place for “Effect of Lead in Emulated Vape Smoke on C. elegans’ Motility and Fertility.”
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Behavioral and Social Sciences: Alina Albeik of Marshall High School took first place for “Exploring Resveratrol’s Role in Memory Persistence in Dugesia tigrina.”
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Biomedical Sciences, Biomedical Engineering and Translational Medicine: Prokofev won first place for his breast cancer drug-resistance project. Penny Swartz of Centreville High School received an honorable mention for “Modeling Tau Hexapeptide Nucleation Interfaces with AlphaFold and Cryo-EM to Predict Early Alzheimer’s Filament Formation.”
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Cell, Molecular and Computational Biology and Biochemistry: Priya Deshpande and Radhika Deshpande of Chantilly High School earned an honorable mention for “StellarCharge: The Effect of Microbial Fuel Cell Design and Space-Simulated Conditions on Power Output of Yeast-Powered MFC.” Taarun Ganesh of Thomas Jefferson received an honorable mention for “Investigating Ribosome Interactions with Mitochondrial Receptors and NAC.” Bhavya Jain of Herndon High School earned an honorable mention for “Biochemical Stabilization of a Novel Hemoglobin-Based Blood Substitute.”
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Earth and Environmental Sciences: Aahan Sachdeva of Thomas Jefferson received an honorable mention for “Electrostatic and Surfactant-Enhanced Cellulose Nanocrystal Cloud Seeding With Machine Learning-Based Spatiotemporal Targeting.”
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Engineering Technology and Sustainable Design: Sathwik Erabelly and Dev Goda of Chantilly High School earned an honorable mention for “ATLAS UAV: A UAV to Autonomously Track, Link, and Aid Survivors.”
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Material Science: Sidh Jaddu of Thomas Jefferson received an honorable mention for “Increasing Surface Flashover Inception Voltage Using a Polymer Nanocomposite for Power Systems in Electric and Hybrid-Electric Aircraft.”
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Microbiology: Madeline Levorson of Thomas Jefferson won first place for “Novel Antimicrobial Treatments Designed With Discovered Lytic Bacteriophages Evaluated Through a Rapid Screening Protocol and an In Vivo Galleria Mellonella System.” Yoonsub Choi of Oakton High School placed second for “Surfactant-Mediated Microplastic Dispersion and Plastisphere Formation Modulation in Marine Microscopic Interactions.”
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Physics, Math, and Astronomy: Singh won first place for his real-time magnetic-field modeling project. Brad Chen of Langley High School received an honorable mention for “Identifying New Candidate Substructures in the Milky Way Halo With Photometry.”
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Robotics, Software and Embedded Systems: Logan Lee, Lucas Shen and Mayu Zuniga of Woodson High School earned an honorable mention for “N1: Using Augmented Reality Technology and Sound Algorithms to Improve Awareness for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing.”
Special awards
Several FCPS students received additional recognition at the fair.
Albeik won the John Bercow Award for her research into resveratrol and memory persistence. Prokofev received the Citadel Securities Innovation Prize for his breast cancer project.
Shiv Davay of Thomas Jefferson received an Office of Naval Research award for “Structural Basis of Kinesin Stalling and Rab-EV Release in 3D Brain Models of TBI.”
Sachdeva won first place in the Leidos Award for Excellence in Computational Science for the cloud-seeding project. Nivedita Gupta of Fairfax High School took second place in the Virginia Section of the American Water Works Association award for “Effect of Plastic Bottle Rigidity on Microplastics Content in Drinking Water.”