Although Steven Liu is relatively new to the study of chemistry, the Monta Vista High School graduate is now the proud owner of the chemical AU.

Steven and his teammates earned gold medals from the 49th International Chemistry Olympiad. The recent Monta Vista High School graduate in Cupertino was one of four members of the U.S. team to compete in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand.

Stevens teammates hailed from Lexington, Massachusetts; Carmel, Indiana; and Hinsdale, Illinois. The U.S. team tied with Taiwan as the top-performing countries.

The team competed July 6-15 against 293 students from 75 countries. The competition consisted of exams and lab work, with time set aside for athletics and sightseeing over those 10 days.

The International Chemistry Olympiad was founded in 1968 in Poland, and the first U.S. team competed at the event in 1984, winning a silver and two bronze medals.

Steven said he first became interested in chemistry in eighth grade after watching chemistry experiments on Youtube, but didnt start to really become serious about the subject until his junior year at Monta Vista. The year prior, he served as an alternate on the American Olympiad team, but this year his hard work earned him a lead spot.

My preparation started with reading a general chemistry book, followed by an introductory organic chemistry book. After reading these books, I practiced with some national Olympiad level problems, and found myself in the U.S. top 20 list, he said in an email to this newspaper.

Steven attended the Olympiad training camp at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he was chosen from 20 finalists for the U.S. team.

I read through two more organic chemistry books, followed by an analytical chemistry book, two inorganic books and two physical chemistry books, he said. Then I just practiced with old international-level problems.

Steven said he was drawn to chemistry because of the overlap in fields such as organic and physical chemistry.

The way that small molecular building blocks can combine to create lifesaving drugs is beautiful, he said.

He added that the intensive and repetitive studying required for the competition started to drain some of the passion hes had for the subject.

For now, he is happy with his teams accomplishments and glad to have had the experience no matter what the future holds. He will be attendingMassachusetts Institute of Technology.

Im still debating on what to major in. Im leaning toward a double major in chemistry and biology, but I may consider majoring in electrical engineering and computer science, he said.

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Monta Vista grad wins gold at International Chemistry Olympiad - The Mercury News