FCPS Students Win Grand Prize Awards at 2021 Regional Science and Engineering Fair

By
FCPS News
March 25, 2021

The 66th annual Fairfax County Regional Science and Engineering Fair virtually showcased over 200 high school science projects via recorded videos. Over 290 students presented their research projects in a wide variety of science and engineering fields. Projects were judged by over 300 professionals and 50 professional organizations and businesses. 

The Grand Prize and first place winners are eligible to compete in the Virginia State Science and Engineering Fair to be held virtually in April.  

Grand Prize winners are:
Animal Sciences, Shan Lateef, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST), What's All the Buzz? Drosophila melanogaster as a Unique Model for Addiction Disorders after Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

Biochemistry: Sagar Gupta and Sumanth Ratna, TJHSST, Protein Secondary Structure Assignment (SSA) by Clustering Amino Acid Residues in the Space of Topological Descriptors; and Gitali Bhanot and Sana Friedman, Oakton High School, Managing Hyperlipidemia: Algae as Lipase Inhibitors.

Chemistry: Kaien Yang of TJHSST, New Methods for Computing the Configurational Entropy of Deeply Supercooled Liquids with the Potential Energy Landscape; and Kiara Fenn of Fairfax High School, The Effect of the Mass of Sodium Bicarbonate on Endothermic Reactions.

Physics and Astronomy, Aditi Chandrashekar and Vance Kreider of TJHSST, Modeling Coronal Faraday Rotation of Radiation from Extragalactic Radio Sources.

Systems Software: Pravalika Putalapattu of TJHSST, DORC: Dynamic Operating Room Companion for Gallbladder Removal Surgery Workflow Verification.

Translational Medical Sciences: Thomas Chia of Chantilly High School, A-EYE: Utilizing Multistage Neural Networks and Landmark Localization for Fundus Image Disease Detection; and Ron Nachum of TJHSST, PANDwriting: An Accessible Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Novel Diagnostic Framework Using Vision-Based Handwriting Kinematic Analysis and Machine Learning.

Complete results from the 2021 Regional Science and Engineering Fair, including a complete list of winners, are available online on the FCPS Science Fair website.

Organization awards are also available online.
 
The 2021 science fair was made possible by hundreds of students, teachers, and community members who dedicated their time and energy.
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