SVACS’ Volunteer Judges: Howard Peters, Owen Gooding, Daryl Miranda, Mattijs van Maaren, Chloe Tannous, Amanda Nelson. Photographer: Natalie McClure.
On March 10, 2026 at the Synopsys Science & Technology Championship Fair in the San Jose Convention Center, our SVACS award teams judged a multitude of projects for two awards: SVACS High School Awards for Excellence in Chemistry and the Middle School Dave Parker Awards for Excellence in Chemistry. Howard Peters, Chloe Tannous, and Mattijs van Maaren judged the middle school projects while Owen Gooding, Amanda Nelson and Daryl Miranda judged the high school projects. From the incredible chemistry and chemistry-related projects at the fair, 3 high school and 3 middle school projects were selected to receive the SVACS awards, conferred in an award ceremony held at the Heritage Theater in Campbell on March 29, 2026.
The SVACS Dave Parker Award for Excellence in Chemistry
- First place: Cooper Edward Bosso, Allen Luo, and Skyler Akira Young of Cabrillo Middle School for Sticky Solutions: Finding the Best Way to Remove Gum
- Second Place: Vrinda Khandelwal and Jessica Li of Harker School-Middle Campus for Water Purification of Lead Nitrate, Potassium Nitrate, and Copper (II) Nitrate Trihydrate By Bamboo
- Third place: Ishan Chaugule of Stratford Preparatory Blackford for Unsticking the Future:Assessing PFAS Reduction Pathways in the Teflon Industry and its Environmental Impact
The SVACS High School Award for Excellence in Chemistry
- First place: Riya Bharath, Harker School-Upper Campus for The Effect of Nanoparticle Type and Crystal Facet on the Photocatalytic Removal of Ethinyl Estradiol from Water
- Second place: Aditya Shivakumar, Harker School-Upper Campus for Low-Cost Arsenic(V) Detection and Hotspot Mapping with Methylene-Blue-Gold Nanoparticles and Smartphone Spectroscopy
- Third place: Aanya Sharma, Harker School-Upper Campus for Determining the Extraction Effect of Cineole and Decanoic Acid on Microplastics found in Wastewater
Whether or not students received awards from the SVACS, from other organizations, or from the Synopsys Fair Subject or Grand Prize categories, the participating students are all winners. Numerous other SVACS members participated in the science fair as organizers and in category-judging, so there’s plenty of opportunity to join us at a future science fair in support of the next generation of scientists. Kudos to Synopsys and to the Santa Clara County Synopsys Championship Science Fair’s board of directors for making our regional competition the wonderful STEM event it is!
For more information, please see Synopsys Science & Technology Championship Fair and David Parker Award for Excellence
By Amanda Nelson
