Evelyn Chang and Jonathan Li claimed Senior Sweepstakes at the 55th Annual Orange County Science and Engineering Fair

The 55th Annual Orange County Science and Engineering Fair was held from April 5 - 10 at the Orange County Fair.  Over 150 projects were presented at the fair.  Judges from the science and engineering communities interviewed students regarding their projects on Wednesday and the results were announced last friday.

Jiho Park, a 7th grader from Rancho San Joaquin Middle School, claimed Junior Sweepstakes awarded to the top project in the middle school division.  His winning project is The effects of three-membered heterocyclic compound-derived dTTP analogs on the inhibition of nucleic acid polymerases relative to that of dTTP using molecular docking.

In the high school division, Evelyn Chang, an 11th grader from University High School, and Jonathan Li, an 11th grader from St. Margaret's Episcopal School won the Senior Sweepstakes awarded to the top projects in the high school division.  Evelyn's project is The development and validation of a novel, eco-friendly calcium in-situ precipitation system (ECIPS) for the mitigaiton of liquefaction-prone soils.  Jonathan's project is Effects of motility and contact inhibition on tumor viability: a discrete simulation using the cellular potts model.  Both Evelyn and Jonathan were selected to represent Orange County at the 2010 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) to be held between May 9 and 14 at San Jose Convension Center.

The following Avid students also received awards:

• James Xue, 9th Grade, University High School - Honorable mention in Applied Mechanics
• Srinidhi Bharadwaj, 7th Grade, Venado Middle School - Honorable mention in Fluids and Aerodynamics
• Alex Zivkovic, 9th Grade, University High School - Third Place in Environmental Science and Ecology
• Avantika Vivek, 6th Grade, Alderwood Basics Plus - Second Place in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
• Kevin Yang, 9th Grade, Mission Viejo High School - Honorable mention in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

In the special award category:

• Kevin Yang, 9th Grade, Mission Viejo High School - First Place, American Association of Clinical Chemistry
• William Xue, 9th Grade, University High School - First Place, National Association of Corrosion Engineers
• Alex Zivkovic, 9th Grade, University High School - National Water Research Institute