Fairfax County Public Schools announced on Mar. 17 that nine student projects earned Grand Prize awards at the 71st annual Fairfax County Regional Science and Engineering Fair. The event featured approximately 400 high school science projects, with more than 640 students presenting research in various scientific and engineering fields.
The science fair is an important opportunity for students to showcase their work to a panel of over 250 professionals and representatives from 40 organizations and businesses. Grand Prize winners are now eligible to compete in the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair in May, while many other participants may advance to the Virginia State Science and Engineering Fair in April.
Among the winning projects were studies on topics such as the effect of lead in vape smoke on C. elegans’ motility, artificial intelligence-powered millirobots for targeted therapeutics, agent-based modeling of Alzheimer’s therapies, tornado prediction methods, robotic pest control systems, gravitational storage applications for power efficiency, energy harvesting using pendulum configurations, and motion-induced quicksand effects.
The full list of Grand Prize recipients includes Julia Hatcher (Madison High School), Lang Xiong (Langley High School), Sarah Park (Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology), Polina Anfilofyev (Marshall High School), Jack Gao (Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology), Bennett Huang and Jason Pan (Langley High School), Amaan Khan, Kavin Paturu Muralikrishnan, Aiman Ullah (Chantilly High School), Utsav Das and Benjamin Kwon (Chantilly High School), and Parham Yeganeh (Marshall High School).
Complete results from the 2026 Regional Science and Engineering Fair are available online on the FCPS Science Fair website. The event was made possible by contributions from hundreds of students, teachers, and community members.
