APS Students Receive Honors at Virginia State Science and Engineering Fair

Congratulations to all APS students who participated in the Virginia State Science and Engineering Fair (VSSEF), which was hosted by Piedmont Valley Community College in Charlottesville on April 5.

The following APS students placed in their categories and/or received awards:

Marek Sundqvist (Arlington Tech) – Honorable Mention, Animal SciencesThe Effect of Substrate Grain Size on Antlion Larvae Funnel Building Efficiency

Kaitlin Madison (Washington-Liberty) – Second Place, Biomedical Sciences, Biomedical Engineering & Translational MedicineInvestigating the Relationship of Ataxia Telangiectasia Mutated (ATM) and BRCA via the DNA Repair Pathway 

Tesla Pfautz (Washington-Liberty) – Second Place, Cell, Molecular and Computational Biology & BiochemistryThe Effect of Chemical Treatments on Blue-Green Algae 

Margaret Saperstein (Washington-Liberty) – First Place, ChemistryThe Effect of Colloidal Silica Concentration in a Biodegradable Gel on Fire Retardation 

Noah Allyn (Washington-Liberty)The Role of DNA Repair Systems in Antibiotic Resistance Acquisition: Using CRISPR-Cas9 to Compare HDR and MMEJ in Escherichia coli K-12

• First Place, Microbiology
• Yale Science and Engineering Association

 Declan Leighton (Yorktown) The Analysis of the Effect of Input Power on the Efficiency of a Magnetoplasmadynamic Thruster Using Magnetic Deflection and Phosphor Screen Photon Emission

• Honorable Mention, Physics, Math and Astronomy
• Second Place, Leidos Award for Excellence in Applied Science