GARDEN GROVE : Senior in Semifinals of Science Contest

Garden Grove High School senior Randy Villahermosa became the only Orange County contestant this year to make it to the semifinals of a prestigious national science competition.

Villahermosa, 17, surpassed more than 1,400 other high school students in the contest sponsored annually by Westinghouse Electric Corp., which offers scholarships to students interested in science. Only 20 students from California reached the semifinals.

Although he did not make it to the finals this week, Villahermosa said his experiment might help clean the nation’s air by improving the way electric companies filter smokestack emissions.

The aspiring chemical engineer performed his research at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont under the guidance of a professor. For the experiment, Villahermosa used electric fields to levitate a tiny granule of “fly ash,” a substance emitted from the smokestacks of coal-burning power plants, inside a bottle the size of a cookie jar.

He then shined varying frequencies of light on the floating speck to see how much energy was required to change its electrical charge and cause it to fall. The results could help electric companies fine-tune their procedures for removing such particles from their emissions.

Villahermosa said that although his friends commended him on his success, many didn’t understand exactly what he had accomplished.

He said that after school officials announced to the students that he had been named a semifinalist in the Westinghouse competition, one friend told him: “Oh, that’s really nice,” and then added: “By the way, what’s that?”

Villahermosa said he has worked as a chemistry teacher’s aide for three years and has taken science courses for each of the past four years.

“Ever since fifth or sixth grade, science was something I was geared to. Most of my time, my attention and what I want to do has to do with science,” he said.

Villahermosa said he hopes to attend Occidental College or UCLA next year and eventually work on ceramic superconductors. Someday, he added, “I’d like to come back to (Garden Grove High) school and teach. That would be like the ultimate dream of my career.”