Alameda County Science and Engineering Fair
Welcome
Judges!
Thank you for volunteering to be a judge. Please familiarize yourself with the schedule and training modules in order for us to have a smooth and successful science fair. If you have any questions please contact the Director of Judging.
Nicholas Young
Director of Judging
Tatyana Borovina
Asst. Director of Judging
Interested in being a judge?
Judge Registration
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Judge registration opens on October 1st. Register Here
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Judges are asked to re-register this year in order to obtain up-to-date information for all of our judges
Judge Qualifications
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In order to judge high school projects, judges must have a Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience or greater in the field they wish to judge.
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In order to judge middle school projects, judges must have an Associate’s degree or 2 years towards a Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience or greater in the field they wish to judge.
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Exceptions to this are considered on a case-by-case basis. Please contact the judging team (judge.acsef@gmail.com) prior to registration.
Judge Training 2024
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All judges are required to attend one online training session
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Sunday March 10, 2024 12 - 1 PM
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Monday March 11, 2024 7 - 8 PM
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Wednesday March 13, 2024 7 - 8 PM
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If you are unable to make one of the training sessions, please reach out to the judging team at judge.acsef@gmail.com
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See our training slides from last year (subject to change):
Thank you to all of our 2023 Judges
Behind the scenes our category and special award judges have volunteered their time preparing to interview each of our student participants by viewing the deliverable items consisting of an abstract, research plan, lab notebook excerpts and additional application forms.
The 2023 judges hailed from various academic, medical, business and industrial sites throughout the Bay Area and nationwide!






























Judge Format 2023
Round 1:
Interview the student as normal, aiming for a 10 - 15 minute interview. Try to interview students who are not speaking with other judges. Once you've gotten all the information you need from a student, score the project, and pick another one from the list. We will remind you to make sure you are moving every 15 minutes, but feel free to work more quickly. This is a "shotgun" start - you do not need to go in any particular order, just find an available student. Judging ends at 11:30 AM and scores are locked in at 12 PM.
Round 2:
Similar to Round 1, there will be no scheduled interviews. You will select a project from your list with a student available, but this time, there might be other judges around. You will do each interview for 10 minutes, move on, and select another student. At the end of Round 2, you will move to supergroups to rank projects within your assigned category. You will only have 90 minutes to meet with all of your assigned students.
Judge Format for ACSEF 2024 is currently under review by our Judging Team.