Miss Virginia Camille Schrier Wins Miss America Competition After On-Stage Science Experiment!

Science wins!

Miss Virginia Camille Schrier proved you don’t need to play classical piano or yodel with puppets to win the title of Miss America 2020: she was crowned thanks to some colorful, exploding goo!

The 24-year-old beauty queen beat out 50 other contestants for the prestigious title on Thursday night after performing the event’s very first science demonstration in the talent portion.

Schrier — a PharmD student at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy — was donning a lab coat when she wowed the audience (and judges Kelly Rowland, Queer Eye‘s Karamo Brown, and Superstore actress Lauren Ash) with the catalytic decomposition of hydrogen peroxide, explaining that “Miss America is someone who needs to educate.”

And that she did!

Watch a clip of her educational performance (below):

Before she won the title, the student thanked the pageant — dubbed Miss America 2.0 — for “taking the focus off our bodies” and giving her a chance to be recognized for her knowledge, personality, and goals. Schrier said her mission as Miss America was to promote drug safety and abuse prevention, as well as support STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education.

The Miss America crown comes with over $300,000 scholarships and a year of representing the organization. Schrier was presented with the crown by her predecessor, 2019’s Miss America Nia Franklin.

The shift in focus in this year’s competition — which was held live at Mohegan Sun Casino & Resort in Uncasville, Connecticut, and hosted by Mario Lopez and Kit Hoover — comes two years after the organization faced intense backlash over leaked emails revealing a toxic culture.

In 2017, HuffPost published company messages between CEO Sam Haskell and other suits that contained several examples of fat-shaming, slut-shaming, name-calling, and scheming behind the backs of former Miss Americas.

One of these icky email exchanges took place in August 2014, when Haskell got a message about 2013 Miss America Mallory Hagan, who was infamously fat-shamed after her win. It was alleged her hairdresser had been telling stories publicly about her sex life. Haskell shared this with head writer Lewis Friedman, saying:

“Not a single day passes that I am not told some horrible story about Mallory.”

To which Friedman responded:

“Mallory’s preparing for her new career as a blimp in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. As she continues to destroy her own credibility, her voice will attract less and less notice while she continues her descent to an unhappy pathetic footnote…

Ps. Are we four the only ones not to have f**ked Mallory?”

After the email leak caused an uproar from the public and former title holders, the organization quickly did damage control: Haskell was soon forced out of his position, and the Board of Trustees eventually announced contestants would no longer be judged on their physical appearance.

Based on this year’s winner, we’d say they’re making leaps in the right direction!

Congrats, Camille!

[Image via WENN]