The 2026 ACS Orange County Chemistry Olympiad Local Section Exam (LSE) competition took place on Saturday, February 28, 2026, from 8:45 am to11:00 am in the Liberal Arts (LA) building at Irvine Valley College, Irvine, CA 92618. There were 237 High School students from 37 high schools from around the County who participated.
A group of 13 top individual students on the LSE advanced to the US National Chemistry Olympiad (USNCO), which was held on Saturday April 18, 2026, at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). This exam is 4.75 hours long (plus breaks), and includes written & lab components. The top twenty scorers in the entire U.S. on the USNCO were invited to attend the National Study Camp in June. This year, that prestigious list included two of our own Orange County students: Liran Zhu (again) and Shannon Imaoka from Troy High School and the Orange County School of the Arts respectively. Congratulations to them, and their teachers Justin Kim (Troy) and Heather Johnson (OCSA).
Liran Zhu (pictured right), one of the top four students at the National Study Camp, was chosen to be a member of the team representing the U.S. at the 58th International Chemistry Olympiad held on July 10-19, 2026, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Liran won a gold medal and a special diploma for being the best student in the world in the practical (laboratory) exam! Read more about the event and the performance of Team USA here.
The top student from each school, the top six school teams and those who competed in the USNCO were honored at the Orange County High School Chemistry Awards Banquet in May.
Read here for more background about the Chemistry Olympiad competition.
Click on the buttons below for details on the winning students and teams in the OCACS 2026 Chemistry Olympiad:
We gratefully acknowledge
Irvine Valley College as the sponsor of part 1 of the Chemistry Olympiad Exam and
The University of California, Irvine, as the sponsor of Part 2 of the 2025 Chemistry Olympiad exam.
For questions, please contact Stacey Hamamura at edchair2@ocacs.org or Stephanie Nobles at edchair1@ocacs.org.