Meet the 2025 CIC Finalists

Have you heard? It’s time for the year’s most innovative competition: the 2025 Collegiate Inventors Competition^® (CIC)! Everyone at the National Inventors Hall of Fame^® is excited to introduce you to this year’s Finalists.

In Washington, D.C., 10 student teams (five Undergraduate and five Graduate) will gather for an unforgettable experience. On Oct. 16, these promising student inventors will be at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in Alexandria, Virginia, where they will present their work to and gain invaluable insight from a panel of Judges including National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductees and intellectual property experts. Winners will receive cash prizes as well as patent acceleration.

Our CIC Finalists come from colleges and universities across the country, and their work could make a major impact around the world.

2025 CIC Undergraduate Finalists

Sense

Nicolas Chicoine, Cameron Freeman and Myles (Max) Miller, Washington University in St. Louis

Food allergies can be dangerous, and they are also quite common. In fact, someone in the U.S. comes into an emergency room every six minutes with food-based anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction. To help people avoid exposure to allergens that could endanger them, this Finalist team created Sense, a portable device for detecting the presence of latent peanut allergens in foods. Testing has shown that Sense could identify peanut allergens with 94% accuracy.

BiliRoo

Daniel John, Calvin University

Globally, about 60% of full-term babies and 80% of premature babies develop jaundice, a symptom of hyperbilirubinemia that causes a yellowing of the skin and other tissues. For more than 60 years, the main treatment for this condition has been phototherapy, but this student has created a solution that would be easier for many to access. The BiliRoo device uses a combination of filtered sunlight phototherapy and “kangaroo” (skin-to-skin) care with an easy-to-use wearable infant sling. It does not require electricity and can be manufactured for 5% of the cost of conventional equipment.

VacuTrac

Cameron Erber, Yeonju Kim, Sophianne Loh and Luke Yuen, Rice University

In the U.S., more than 300,000 spinal fusion surgeries are performed each year. This procedure involves using bone grafts or metal implants to permanently connect two or more vertebrae, and it can relieve pain caused by conditions including scoliosis, degenerative disk disease and spinal stenosis. However, this surgery involves a risky, inefficient process. VacuTrac is designed to increase efficiency and precision in these surgeries. Combining the functions of multiple surgical tools in a single, user-friendly device, it allows one surgeon to work on both sides of the spine at once, decreasing the time needed to expose the spine.

BRCĒ Composite Material

Madhav Aggarwal and Tanvi Gadamsetti, Michigan State University

Athletic equipment and apparel often are made from materials that fail to withstand the demands of the athletes who depend on them. BRCĒ (pronounced "brace") is a high-performance composite material engineered to provide greater strength, durability and flexibility. It combines microscopic mechanical interlocking design and directional friction at the fiber level. When BRCĒ is used in shoelaces, for example, the knot holds together through directionally responsive friction from ridges and interlocking micro-hooks. Lab tests have demonstrated that this material has a greater tensile strength than steel.

Augmented Laparoscopic Grasper (ALG)

Morgan Coghlan and Ronith Dasari, Purdue University

Through laparoscopy, certain surgical procedures can be performed with minimally invasive techniques, leaving patients with smaller scars, faster recovery times and reduced pain. As a result, laparoscopic procedures are now more widely used than open surgeries for a range of conditions. However, while graspers are a fundamental tool in minimally invasive surgery, their use comes with considerable challenges. With their invention of ALG, this Finalist team  introduces the unique capability of real-time force sensing with visualization. By allowing surgeons to receive immediate visual feedback on their grip pressure, ALG gives them better control, helping to avoid tissue damage.

2025 CIC Graduate Finalists

GyroGel

Peter Bertone and Levi Olevsky, Dartmouth College

Head and neck cancers account for about 4% of U.S. cancer cases, with more than 68,000 new diagnoses each year. Half of patients will need to undergo jawbone resection, most often through free flap mandible reconstruction, which is a complicated, time-intensive procedure. In response, this team created GyroGel, a synthetic bone grafting system designed to integrate into existing surgical workflows. It reduces the number of surgeons and surgeries needed for jaw reconstruction and can regenerate the jaw to match the patient’s presurgery appearance.

RedAlert Living Sensors

Jacob Belding and Ava Forystek, Cornell University

Nitrogen plays a critical role in crop plant production, promoting rapid plant growth and supporting the production of abundant green foliage, translating to a higher crop yield. Current industry techniques for evaluating nitrogen availability primarily involve measuring chlorophyll in the foliage, but these techniques can fail to provide precise and timely information. To easily indicate nitrogen deficiency, RedAlert Living Sensor plants are genetically modified to produce a plant pigment in a vivid red color. By helping farmers recognize deficiencies as quickly as possible and enabling them to apply nitrogen fertilizer as needed, this invention could make a significant impact on small-scale agriculture.

AirGel

Weixin Guan and Yaxuan Zhao, University of Texas at Austin

As many as two-thirds of people worldwide are experiencing some level of water scarcity. As the population grows and freshwater supplies decrease, sustainable ways to increase the planet’s water supply will become even more crucial. This Finalist team has developed a novel way to extract drinking water from humidity in the air. AirGel combines a sorbent material derived from biomass sources such as food scraps and forestry byproducts, with a portable collection device that uses minimal power.

Self-Aggregating Long-Acting Injectable Microcrystals (SLIM)

Sanghyun Park, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

For people to receive the full benefits of medications they need, it’s essential that they take them on time, but busy schedules, social stigma and environments lacking resources can make this challenging. Medications that can be administered by a single injection and that can last for months or years are ideal, but they also have drawbacks. To trigger drug microcrystals to pack more tightly than in existing injections, SLIM combines an active pharmaceutical ingredient and a biocompatible solvent. It could increase patients’ comfort and autonomy while also reducing the number of injections patients need.

The Dual-Sided Tag Applier (DSTA)

Amanda Hudson, Jade Lee, Alexandra McLennan and Ishika Mukherjee, Rice University

Soft tissue sarcoma (STS) is a rare cancer arising from soft tissues that connect, support and surround other organs. STS tumors, which can occur anywhere in the body, are aggressive and anatomically complex, making surgical resection the primary treatment. Unfortunately, recurrence is common among STS cases. The DSTA is a device that simultaneously labels the specimen and marks the defect during resection, potentially reducing miscommunication between pathology and oncology teams, decreasing specimen processing time and enabling targeted recurrence management.

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