Judging for LACSEF

Thank you for your inter­est in judg­ing for the 76th Annu­al Los Ange­les Coun­ty Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing Fair! Below you will find the cri­te­ria to serve as a judge for our event.

Junior Divi­sion (Stu­dents grades 6–8; 21 cat­e­gories; about 60% of projects)

• Cer­ti­fied sci­ence, engi­neer­ing, math or com­put­er sci­ence teach­ers (can­not judge stu­dents from their school)
• Indi­vid­u­als with a degree in sci­ence, engi­neer­ing, math or com­put­er sci­ence (STEM)
• Peo­ple who work in an area of sci­ence, engi­neer­ing, math or com­put­er science
• Under­grad­u­ate pre-ser­vice teach­ers or stu­dents work­ing towards a STEM degree; Juniors and Seniors (Upper­class­men) with research expe­ri­ence. (Junior Divi­sion judg­ing only)
• Meet the Senior Divi­sion criteria
• Retired indi­vid­u­als with the above qualifications

Senior Divi­sion (High School; 15 cat­e­gories; about 40% of projects)

• Indi­vid­u­als with a STEM degree, prefer­ably with expe­ri­ence in col­lege “poster ses­sions” or sci­ence fairs
• Stu­dents work­ing on a Grad­u­ate STEM degree 
• High School sci­ence, engi­neer­ing, math or com­put­er sci­ence teach­ers (can­not judge stu­dents from their school)
• Peo­ple work­ing in a STEM field for five or more years
• Retired indi­vid­u­als with the above qualifications

Gen­er­al Information

Los Ange­les Coun­ty Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing Fair judges help deter­mine cat­e­go­ry win­ners as well as those who will rep­re­sent the LACSEF at the Cal­i­for­nia State Sci­ence Fair and the Inter­na­tion­al Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing Fair (ISEF). LACSEF win­ners receive medals, cash, awards, and /or schol­ar­ships. Your par­tic­i­pa­tion as a judge tru­ly makes a dif­fer­ence in the lives of stu­dents and shapes the sci­en­tists of tomorrow!

Judg­ing will occur Mon­day, March 9, 2026. There are 41 cat­e­gories for stu­dent exhibits, Junior or Senior Divi­sion. Judges are pro­vid­ed with all nec­es­sary mate­ri­als, and there is a Chair­per­son for each cat­e­go­ry to help facil­i­tate the process and answer ques­tions. Judges will work in pan­els of 2–3 judges to allow ALL stu­dents to be seen by judges at least twice! Judges will com­plete a scor­ing rubric for each project, which will be sent to the stu­dents via their school/Site Coordinator.

Prepar­ing for Judg­ing and Inter­view­ing at the Fair

How to Register

To reg­is­ter as a judge for the Los Ange­les Coun­ty Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing Fair:

1. Log into online reg­is­tra­tion sys­tem at app.lascifair.org

1. Enter your infor­ma­tion and indi­cate pre­ferred lev­el* and cat­e­gories** to judge.

Notes:

*When fill­ing out the Judge’s Appli­ca­tion, first select the divi­sion you pre­fer to judge. (Junior Division=Grades 6–8; Senior Divi­sion= Grades 9–12 or No Pref­er­ence), and whether or not you are will­ing to be a Chair­per­son for your category.

**Select up to three cat­e­gories that you are qual­i­fied to judge (you will be assigned to judge only one.) Please pay par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to these selec­tions and dou­ble-check your cat­e­go­ry choic­es. If you have strong desires to judge cer­tain cat­e­gories OR more flex­i­bil­i­ty than the web­site can record, please email that infor­ma­tion after you have reg­is­tered to  judging@lascifair.org.

If you have friends in sci­ence, engi­neer­ing, or tech­nol­o­gy who might like to serve as a judge, please noti­fy us as soon as possible!

Con­tact: Please do not hes­i­tate to con­tact us if you have any ques­tions. We look for­ward to your par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 76th Annu­al Los Ange­les Coun­ty Sci­ence & Engi­neer­ing Fair. 

Alamelu Arunacha­lam,  judging@lascifair.org

NON-DISCRIMINATION POLICY

The Los Ange­les Coun­ty Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing Fair is an equal oppor­tu­ni­ty for all events, regard­less of age, ances­try, col­or, dis­abil­i­ty (men­tal and phys­i­cal), gen­der, gen­der iden­ti­ty, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, med­ical con­di­tion, nation­al ori­gin, race and reli­gious creed. Judges & vol­un­teers bear the respon­si­bil­i­ty to act as guardians and cus­to­di­ans of the stu­dents dur­ing their vol­un­teer­ing. Their famil­iar­i­ty with the stu­dents’ spe­cial sen­si­tiv­i­ties is imper­a­tive to the over­all suc­cess of the Sci­ence Fair and our efforts to achieve an equal oppor­tu­ni­ty for all, free of discrimination.