The Brevard High School student’s main focus is biology, and her research team was a national finalist at the International Science and Engineering Fair, in San Jose, California, this year. Their project, The Effect of Adelges tsugae on Sasajiscymnus tsugae Egg Production, could have a huge impact on Western North Carolina forestry. They’re breeding a beetle in the lab, the sasi, that can eat wooly adelgids—which eat hemlocks. In 2009, Williams got to collaborate on the project with scientists at the Triangle Research Center in Triangle Park.