Photo courtesy of Jessica Suther
Thomas Moravec works on Vestavia Hills High School's robot for a Robot Tour event at the state Science Olympiad competition at Auburn University on Saturday, March 29, 2025.
The Science Olympiad team from Vestavia Hills High School came in third in the state competition at Auburn University this past weekend.
The Vestavia team was competing against 15 other teams that also qualified for the state competition by being a top finisher in regional competitions across the state, said Jessica Sutherland, a chemistry teacher at Vestavia who coaches the team.
The Alabama School of Fine Arts came in first in the state, and James Clemens High School in Madison finished second.
Science Olympiad competitions are like academic track meets, consisting of a series of 23 team events.
Two students from Vestavia, Thomas Moravec and Mohsin Rabbani, were state champions this year in the air trajectory event, while Hannah LeNoir and Lily Xie came in second in “disease detectives.”
Three pairs of students from Vestavia placed third in their events: Gretchen Ferguson and Xie in chemistry lab; Xie and Judy Yamani in forensics; and Moravec and Yamani in optics.
Other members of the team were Nehan Andrabi, Rishika Chakravarty, Isa Esguerra, Vincent Fang, Ishaan Garg, Henry Groce, Corra Maddox, Hazel Martin and Jeffrey Wu.
Photo courtesy of Jessica Suther
The Science Olympiad team from Vestavia Hills High School came in third place in the state Science Olympiad competition at Auburn University on Saturday, March 29, 2025.
Teamwork is a required skill in most scientific careers today, and Science Olympiad encourages group learning by designing events that forge alliances. In an event called “elevated bridge,” an engineering whiz and a student from wood shop can become gold medalists. Similarly, a talented builder and a student with a good science vocabulary can excel in “Write It Do It,” one of Science Olympiad’s most popular events.
Each year, a portion of the events are rotated to reflect the ever-changing nature of genetics, earth science, chemistry, anatomy, physics, geology, mechanical engineering and technology. By combining events from all disciplines, Science Olympiad encourages a wide cross-section of students to get involved. Emphasis is placed on active, hands-on group participation.
“This is the biggest and longest standing science and engineering competition that goes on in the United States,” Sutherland said. “I am so very proud of how hard these students have worked and how well they represented VHHS.”
