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Students shine at LLNL Alameda County Science and Engineering Fair

Nearly 650 students from 72 schools participated last weekend in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Alameda County Science and Engineering Fair held at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton. More than 480 separate projects were submitted by high school and middle school students from across Alameda County.

KGO-TV meteorologist Mike Nicco served as emcee during the fair's awards ceremony, which was attended by a number of elected and education officials including, Congressman Eric Swalwell; Assembly member Joan Buchannan; Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty; Livermore Mayor John Marchand; Pleasanton Mayor Jerry Thorn; Pleasanton Schools Superintendent Parvin Ahmadi; Livermore Schools Superintendent Kelly Bowers and Alameda County Board of Education Trustee Joaquin Rivera. The four grand prize winners are now eligible to compete in this year's Intel Science Fair in Los Angeles.

The four winners are:

Amador Valley High School's Janel Jihyeon Lee, for a project titled "An Enhanced Method For Fusing Multiple Exposure Images For High Dynamic Range Scenes."

Dublin High School's Kumaran Ratnam, for a project titled "A Novel Energy Harvesting System With A Piezo Element To Power A Visual Prosthesis System."

Mission San Jose High School's Vaishnavi Shrivastava, for a project titled "Progressing Targeted Cancer Therapy And Diagnosis Analyzing The Role Of MicroRNA Target Interactions And Expression Signatures Of Glioblastoma Progression."

Mission San Jose High School's Ragu Dara for a project titled "Achieving Net Gain Nuclear Fusion In Nanocapsules By Coupling Sonolumininescense And Magnetic Confinement."

"As the fair's title sponsor, both the Laboratory and LLNS are pleased with the explosive growth the fair has seen in the past few years. But the most exciting part is 79 percent of this year's entries are first time science fair competitors," said Jim Bono, LLNL, Public Affairs director. "This is a testament to the quality of the fair and the leadership of fair chairperson Patti Carothers and her staff. Congratulations to Patti, her staff, all the student participants and award recipients."