Two Lynchburg City Schools (LCS) students participated in the highly competitive 2025 Virginia State Science & Engineering Fair (VSSEF) at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville on April 4 and 5. These students earned a spot in the state competition after excelling at the Central Virginia Regional Science Fair on March 1 against public and private school students from Amherst County, Appomattox County, Bedford County, Campbell County, and the city of Lynchburg. Thirteen students from the Central Virginia region were chosen to participate in the VSSEF.
All LCS CVRSF participants attend Central Virginia Governor’s School for Science and Technology (CVGS), an advanced regional school, in addition to E. C. Glass High School or Heritage High School.
VSSEF Qualifiers
The following students competed in the VSSEF:
Caden Morford, E. C. Glass High School (ECG)
“Economic Feasibility of a Home Scale Green Energy Storage System Compared to Traditional Battery Storage”
Serena Guo, Heritage High School (HHS)
“Orange you curious? The Biocatalytic Capabilities of Peroxidase on the Degradation of Acid Orange 7”
Category Winners
The following students received awards in their categories at the CVRSF:
Behavioral & Social Sciences
- 2nd place: Anna Grace McCloskey, ECG
- 3rd place: Juliette Dop, ECG
Cellular & Molecular Biology
- 2nd place: Sarah Chaudhry, HHS
Chemistry
- 1st place: Serena Guo, HHS
Computer Science & Machine Learning
- 3rd place: Josiah Martin, HHS
Energy: Sustainable Materials & Design
- 1st place: Caden Morford, ECG
- Honorable mention: Jacob Flint, ECG
Engineering & Engineering Technology
- 2nd place: Apollo Guanzon, ECG
Medicine & Health Sciences
- 3rd place: Claire Ramsey, ECG
Physics & Astronomy & Cosmology
- 2nd place: Bryce Barron, ECG
- 3rd place: Mason Minkler, ECG
Plant Sciences
- 3rd place: Hannah Kim, HHS
Special Awards
The following students won local, state, and national special awards:
ASCE Lynchburg Branch, Local Engineering Awards
- 1st place: Brodey Smith, ECG
- 2nd place: Justin Gibbs, ECG
U.S. Air Force Awards
- Josiah Martin, HHS
U.S. Metric Association
- Elijah Callahan, HHS
Women Geoscientist Award
- Hannah Kim, HHS
U.S. Stockholm Water Prize Nominations
- 1st place: Serena Guo, HHS
Ricoh Americas Corporation Environmental Award
- Apollo Guanzon, ECG