Students from Conejo Valley area schools were winners at the 55th Ventura County Science Fair on March 24 to 26 at Seaside Park in Ventura.

More than 700 students competed in the fair with the theme "Today's Dreams are Tomorrow's Science."

All first- and second-place finishers in each division category qualify to compete in the California State Science Fair in Los Angeles on May 18 to 19.

La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks had three students with first-place projects. In the Senior Division, grades nine to 12, were Nishita Viswananthan in engineering: materials and bioengineering, and Elly Shao in physics and astronomy.

Lena Melillo in energy and transportation won the Junior Division, grades six to eight.

Thousand Oaks High School had two students with winning projects in the Senior Division, Bryan McSweeney with behavioral and social sciences, and Yenyu Chen in chemistry.

Los Cerritos and Redwood Middle Schools both had two winners in the Junior Division. Grace Ng in behavioral and social sciences, and Adam Protter in chemistry attend Los Cerritos. Rima Deshpande in Amgen biochemistry, and Sophia Chen in plant sciences are students at Redwood.

Samantha Guhan of Newbury Park High, the only Ventura County student to place first in last year's California State Science Fair, won the Senior Division's Amgen biochemistry category.

Phoebe Ng of Westlake, who won the Ventura County Science Fair poster contest, also had a winning project in the Senior Division's microbiology category.