2025 Collegiate Inventors Competition Finalists Showcase Future of American Innovation

NORTH CANTON, Ohio — Sept. 25, 2025 — The Collegiate Inventors Competition^®, an annual competition that has rewarded innovations, discoveries and research by college and university students and their faculty advisers for 35 years, announced today its 2025 finalists.

This year’s finalists and their inventions provide a glimpse into the future of American innovation and emerging technological trends — from an infant jaundice treatment to a sustainable drinking water solution. Through their research, these students have harnessed their “inner inventor” to make working prototypes that can positively change our world.

Each year, individuals representing a broad cross-section of technological fields serve as first-round judges, evaluating entries based on originality of the idea, process, level of student initiative, and potential value and usefulness to society. The finalists will present their inventions Oct. 16 to a panel of final-round judges composed of the most influential inventors and invention experts in the nation — National Inventors Hall of Fame^® Inductees and United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) officials. Winning teams, which receive cash prizes and patent acceleration, also will be announced on Oct. 16.

“The USPTO is proud to be the host and presenting sponsor for the 2025 Collegiate Inventors Competition ­— a program where the brightest college minds in our country showcase the ideas and inventions that will shape our future,” said John Squires, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO. “We are pleased to meet the Finalists as they gain valuable exposure for their ideas, receive guidance and feedback from world-changing inventors, and see their hard work rewarded. As these young inventors and entrepreneurs strive to patent their inventions and bring them to market, they represent the promise of our nation’s intellectual property system and the growth of our innovation economy. Innovation is ageless.”

Established in 1990, the Collegiate Inventors Competition is a program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and is sponsored by the USPTO. Follow the National Inventors Hall of Fame on Facebook, LinkedIn, X and Instagram for updates and additional information.

UNDERGRADUATE FINALISTS

Augmented Laparoscopic Grasper (ALG), Purdue University

Team Members: Morgan Coghlan, Ronith Dasari; Adviser: Asem Aboelzahab

An advanced tool for surgeons: Laparoscopy is a minimally invasive surgical technique that results in less pain, faster recovery and smaller scars. Consequently, for many conditions, it is now more widely used than open surgery. However, while graspers are fundamental tools in laparoscopic procedures, they present challenges including ergonomic issues and reduced tactile feedback. ALG includes a compact force sensor in the tip of the graspers that provides real-time, force-sensing capabilities. With immediate visual feedback on the force applied to tissue, ALG helps surgeons maintain better control and avoid tissue damage.

BiliRoo, Calvin University

Team Member: Daniel John; Adviser: Jon VerLee

Better care for infants: Globally,​ 60% of full-term infants and 80% of premature infants develop jaundice, one of the leading causes of preventable infant disability and mortality worldwide. Over 6 million infants lack access to ​the necessary phototherapy treatment due to sporadic electricity and high equipment costs. BiliRoo is a patent-pending, easy-to-use, low-cost, nonelectric medical device designed to treat infant jaundice in limited-resource settings. ​BiliRoo is a wearable infant sling that combines filtered sunlight phototherapy and “kangaroo care” (skin-to-skin contact)​ to enable parental involvement and potential at-home use.

BRCĒ Composite Material, Michigan State University

Team Members: Madhav Aggarwal, Tanvi Gadamsetti; Adviser: Paul Jaques

Reliable strength for athletic gear: Equipment and apparel across industries often fail due to lack of advanced materials technology, affecting those who depend on them. To provide greater strength, durability and flexibility, BRCĒ (pronounced "brace") has developed patented high-performance polymer-composite materials that combine an interlocking design with directional friction at the fiber level, giving extreme tensile strength, variable elasticity and fire resistance. In BRCĒ's flagship product, “Shoelaces That NEVER QUIT,” for example, the knot stays secure with directionally responsive friction, providing sport-specific benefits and lateral support at all national major leagues across sports.

Sense, Washington University in St. Louis

Team Members: Nicolas Chicoine, Cameron Freeman, Myles (Max) Miller; Adviser: Barani Raman

A smart new way to avoid allergens: Food allergies are common and dangerous. In the U.S., someone comes into an emergency room every six minutes with food-based anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction. Designed to help people avoid exposure to allergens that could endanger them, the Selective Electronic peaNut Sensing Entity (SENSE) is a portable device that detects latent peanut presence in foods. In under one minute, by hovering the device over food, SENSE scans a whole dish for peanut presence and displays results on a smartphone application. It has achieved very high accuracy during testing.

VacuTrac, Rice University

Team Members: Cameron Erber, Yeonju Kim, Sophianne Loh, Luke Yuen; Adviser: Sabia Abidi

Efficiency in spinal surgery: Each year, more than 300,000 Americans undergo spinal fusion surgery, in which bone grafts or metal implants are used to permanently connect two or more vertebrae. However, this surgery involves exposing the spine in a long, risky and inefficient process. To address this, VacuTrac combines the functions of multiple surgical tools in a single, user-friendly device. It allows two surgeons to work on both sides of the spine at once, reducing the time needed to expose the spine while increasing efficiency and precision.

GRADUATE FINALISTS

AirGel, University of Texas at Austin

Team Members: Weixin Guan, Yaxuan Zhao; Adviser: Guihua Yu

A sustainable drinking water solution: As many as two-thirds of people worldwide are experiencing water scarcity. As the population grows and freshwater supplies decrease, sustainable ways to increase the planet’s water supply will become more crucial. AirGel introduces an innovative, cost-effective way to extract drinking water from humidity in the air anytime, anywhere. This gel-based, solar atmospheric water harvesting device combines hydrogel sorbents derived from biomass sources, such as food scraps and forestry byproducts, with a portable collection device that requires minimal power, delivering off-grid access while reducing reliance on energy-intensive and centralized infrastructure.

GyroGel, Dartmouth College

Team Members: Peter Bertone, Levi Olevsky; Adviser: Katherine Hixon

An innovative bone graft substitute: GyroGel is a biomaterial implant to improve jawbone reconstruction. Each year, tens of thousands of head and neck cancer patients lose part of their jaw to tumor removal, and face difficult operations that require multiple surgical teams, painful bone grafting from their legs, and limited restoration of facial appearance. GyroGel provides a patient-specific implant that combines 3D-printed bio-ceramics with a cell-friendly gel that encourages natural bone regrowth. By simplifying surgery and enabling the jaw to rebuild itself, GyroGel can reduce clinical burden, improve quality of life and transform care.

RedAlert Living Sensors, Cornell University

Team Members: Jacob Belding, Ava Forystek; Advisers: Abraham Stroock, Margaret Frank, Neil Mattson

A vivid idea for smarter fertilizer use: Nitrogen plays a critical role in crop plant production, promoting rapid growth and increasing crop yields. Current techniques for evaluating nitrogen availability primarily involve measuring chlorophyll in the foliage but 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 quickly recognize deficiencies and apply nitrogen fertilizer only as needed, this invention facilitates plant-human interaction to reduce chemical waste, benefiting agriculture and the environment.

SLIM, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Team Member: Sanghyun Park; Adviser: Giovanni Traverso

More effective injections: Patient medication adherence remains challenging due to complex dosing schedules and lifestyle barriers. Existing long-acting injectable medications often require large needles and clinical administration, limiting patient comfort and access. Self-Aggregating Long-Acting Injectable Microcrystals (SLIM) represent a breakthrough drug delivery platform where microcrystals self-organize into compact implants after injection through small needles. This biocompatible system enables self-administration with minimal discomfort while extending drug release duration. SLIM technology could improve patient autonomy and treatment adherence across various therapeutic areas by making long-acting injections more accessible and user-friendly.

The Dual-Sided Tag Applier (DSTA), Rice University

Team Members: Amanda Hudson, Jade Lee, Alexandra McLennan, Ishika Mukherjee; Adviser: Justin Bird

Improving cancer patient outcomes: Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) are aggressive and anatomically complex cancers that can occur anywhere in the body. Surgical removal is the primary treatment; unfortunately, STS has a high recurrence rate of 50%. Current tumor margin-marking methods are inconsistent, imprecise and nonstandardized, increasing miscommunication between pathology and oncology teams, and compromising histopathological evaluation. The DSTA is a medical device that simultaneously labels the tumor and marks the tumor bed during surgery, accurately marking tumor margins at the point of resection and enabling more targeted recurrence management to improve patient outcomes.

About the Collegiate Inventors Competition

The Collegiate Inventors Competition encourages and drives innovation and entrepreneurship at the collegiate level. A program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, this competition recognizes and rewards the research, innovations and discoveries by college students and their advisers for projects leading to inventions that have the potential of receiving patent protection. Introduced in 1990, the competition has featured more than 500 innovators who have created cutting-edge, world-changing inventions, and awarded more than $1 million of support to winning student teams for their innovative work and scientific achievement through the help of its sponsors. For more information, visit invent.org/collegiate-inventors.

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CONTACT:

Ken Torisky  
National Inventors Hall of Fame  
[email protected]  
234-901-6085