Gabriela Konde, a junior at George C. Marshall High School, has been selected as the 2024 recipient of the STEM Excellence Award, given annually by the McLean area branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW).
The award is presented to a female student or team from a high school in the McLean area with an outstanding project in the field of engineering that was entered in the Fairfax County Regional Science and Engineering Fair.
Phyllis Yoshida and Hamideh Soltani-Ahmadi served as judges for the branch at the science fair. Konde’s project was “Optimal Sound Frequencies for Targeted E. coli Biofilm Eradication on Medical Devices.”
In addition to receiving the STEM Excellence Award, Konde was selected as a first-place category winner in microbiology, which qualified her to attend the Virginia State Science Fair. There she again took first place in her category (and fifth place overall), making her eligible to attend the International Science and Engineering Fair in Los Angeles.
For more information on the McLean area branch of the AAUW, see the Website at http://mclean-va.aauw.net.