two kids holding medalsTwo Osbourn Park High School students won national gold medals at the 2026 NAACP Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics, marking the first time the Prince William Area ACT-SO program has produced two national champions in the same year.

Gabriel Hamilton, a rising senior, won gold in Original Essay for “Flawed by Design.” Drawing his experience with dyslexia, Hamilton examined how systems that appear to work can still leave people behind.

Michelle Marfo, a 2026 graduate, won gold in mathematics for research that used mathematical modeling to simulate how dysfunction spreads through the brain’s neural networks.

Hamilton and Marfo became the first two Prince William Area ACT-SO students to win national gold medals in the same year. Their victories also made Prince William Area ACT-SO the only Virginia program to produce national gold medalists in 2026.

“Having two national gold medalists from Osbourn Park High School in the same year is an extraordinary achievement,” said Principal Lisamarie Kane. “Michelle and Gabriel have represented our school with distinction, and we are incredibly proud of what they have accomplished.”

Hamilton said he hopes his essay challenges people to reconsider the systems that shape their daily lives.

“Every design reflects a choice,” Hamilton said. “If my essay encourages even one person to think differently about how we design our schools, neighborhoods and institutions, then I’ve accomplished what I hoped it would.”

Marfo, who will attend Virginia Tech this fall to study computer science, shared, “Competing at ACT-SO gave me the opportunity to apply what I’ve learned on a national stage while learning alongside talented students from across the country.”

More than 600 students from ACT-SO programs nationwide competed in July in Chicago.

Both students qualified for the national competition by winning their categories at the Prince William Area ACT-SO competition this spring.