News of the achievements of local students and members of the Armed Forces.
• Ava Gidwani, Tomara Haidar and Patrick Santorum of Great Falls and Julianna Hoffman, Shane Woldow and Gina DeChristopher of Vienna have been named to the dean’s list for the fall semester at Belmont University.
• Andrew Gordowski of Vienna and Max Mento of McLean have been named to the dean’s list for the fall semester at York College of Pennsylvania.
• Grace Colangelo of Vienna has been named to the dean’s list for the fall semester at Nazareth College.
• Mohammed Hamdan Alameemi, Handan Mabkhou Almansoori and Abdulla Alzaabi of McLean have been named to the dean’s list for the fall semester at Iowa State University.
• Laney Bell of Vienna and Olivia Bell of Vienna have been named to the dean’s list for the fall semester at Harding University.
• Jenny Helmer of McLean and Abigail Harnisch and Hannah Harnisch of Oakton have been named to the dean’s list for the fall semester at Saint Mary’s College.
• Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology was among the 60 winning teams chosen by NASA for the second TechRise Student Challenge, a nationwide contest designed to engage students in technology, science and space exploration.
These teams will work together to build science and technology experiments in preparation for a suborbital flight test. The team from Thomas Jefferson is made up of students from the Chemical Analysis Lab and Astronomy Lab, who worked together on their proposal.
“Through opportunities like the TechRise Student Challenge, young people are deepening their passion in science and technology, preparing to be the future innovators and pioneers who help humanity soar to new heights and unlock more secrets of the universe,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
Each team will receive $1,500 to build its experiments and an assigned spot to test it on one of two NASA-sponsored high-altitude balloon flights scheduled for this summer. Winning teams will design, build, and prepare their payloads for flight, receiving close mentorship and support along the way.
The challenge is designed to inspire a deeper understanding of Earth’s atmosphere, surface features and climate, as well as space exploration, coding, electronics and the value of test data.