The new Miss America is a scientist from Virginia

Camille Schrier, a student at Virginia Commonwealth who advocates for drug safety, was crowned Miss America 2020 on Thursday night at the Mohegan Sun Earth Expo <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> <><><>& Convention Center in Uncasville, Connecticut./ppSchrier was chosen by a panel of three celebrity judges over Miss Georgia Victoria Hill./ppSchrier, who gave a chemistry demonstration on hydrogen peroxide during the talent competition, was crowned by 2019 Miss America Nia Franklin from New York./ppThe new Miss America told the crowd during introductions that she plans to get a doctor of pharmacy degree at VCU, in Richmond, Virginia. She has undergraduate degrees in biochemistry and systems biology from Virginia Tech./ppShe will spend a year advocating for Mind Your Meds: Drug Safety and Abuse Prevention from Pediatrics to Geriatrics./ppMiss Missouri Simone Esters made the top three but did not make the cut after the final trio advocated for their social causes./ppContestants were judged by singer Kelly Rowland, a href=”https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/19/entertainment/netflix-queer-eye-season-4/index.html” target=”_blank””Queer Eye”/a star Karamo Brown and “Superstore” actress Lauren Ash./ppLast year, the competition announced it would stop judging women on their outward appearance and scrapped its highly criticized swimsuit competition. Now, a href=”https://www.missamerica.org/competition/” target=”_blank”the organization says/a, contestants have more time to advocate for their social impact initiatives and have their voices be heard./ppDuring the preliminary competitions, 51 contestants took to the stage for personal interviews, talent demonstrations, and social impact statements./ppThe other women in the top 15 were:/ppMiss Oklahoma Addison Price, third runner-up, eliminated after the talent competitionMiss Connecticut Jillian Duffy, fourth runner-up, eliminated after the talent competitionMiss Alabama Tiara Pennington, eliminated after first on-stage interviewMiss Colorado Monica Thompson, eliminated after first on-stage interviewMiss California Eileen KimMiss Florida Michaela McLeanMiss Hawaii Nicole HolbrookMiss Kansas Annika WootonMiss New Jersey Jade GlabMiss North Carolina Alexandra BadgettMiss New York Lauren MolellaMiss Texas Chandler Foreman/ppCNN’s Elizabeth Wolfe and Saeed Ahmed contributed to this report./p