CHICAGO – A University of Illinois senior is $27,000 richer today, having shared the grand prize in the 2009 Collegiate Inventors Competition.

Stephen Diebold, 21, of Rolling Meadows was one of two grand prize winners named Tuesday. He was cited for his invention of the Drop Point, a device that helps quadriplegics with everyday tasks.

"I was the youngest and only undergraduate to have won the grand prize," Diebold said Wednesday before flying back to Champaign.

During the awards ceremony Tuesday night at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, Diebold picked up a $2,000 check, as did the other eight finalists. It was then announced that a team from Dartmouth had won the top undergraduate prize.

"At that point, I thought, 'Oh, well, there went my chance. I can relax now,'" Diebold said. "I got to enjoy the rest of the show without shakes or worries."

But after a student from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology won the top graduate prize, the master of ceremonies said that for the first time ever, there had been a tie for grand prize.

"I began to think, 'What if? What if? That would be amazing!'" Diebold said. "I got on edge a little."

The first grand-prize winner was Harris Wang of Harvard Medical School. The audience was then told the other grand prize was won by an undergraduate, a first.

When Diebold's name was announced, "it took me a while to stand up." He received a gold medal and a check for $25,000, then made an acceptance speech, mindful that professional inventors and future inventors were in the audience.

He told them to remember the people for whom they design their products.

"For you, it may be only a tool, but for other people, it could be a way of life," he said.

The Drop Point made improvements on pointing sticks quadriplegics use for tasks such as typing, operating cell phones and manipulating objects. Some sticks are held by the teeth; other are mounted on the user's head.

Using Diebold's invention, quadriplegics can use the pointing stick by simply shrugging their chin. The stick is attached to a cup on a strap hung around the neck.

Sitting in the front row with Diebold was Jonathon Ko, the former UI law student for whom Diebold designed the device. Diebold, an industrial design major, came up with the idea in a design class where students were paired with people with disabilities.

Diebold said he's not quite sure what he'll do with the prize money.

"Now I have funding to make some prototypes," he said. But he added he'll probably end up investing most of it.

Bridgestone was a sponsor of the event, and each finalist received four Bridgestone tires.

A Bridgestone representative told Diebold after the ceremony that two years earlier, he had been left quadriplegic for about a year, after surgery that went awry.

"Just like that, his world changed, and I could see how limited he felt from this disability. He said he completely understood where I was coming from," Diebold said.

Diebold noted he was the only contestant from the field of fine and applied arts.

"Everyone else was in some form of engineering," he said.

He added he was amazed by all the contestants' inventions – including synthetic HDL (the "good" cholesterol) developed by two students from Northwestern.

Diebold missed three days of classes while taking part in the competition and has a lot of catching up to do. But he's pretty happy about his situation.

"There is no problem when you win $27,000," he said.

John Wright Wins the Third Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize for Inventiveness and Innovation

URBANA, Ill. (March 4, 2009) –  John Wright, a graduate student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is the third winner of the $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize. The award ceremony was held on March 4th at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois.

Mr. Wright has developed new mathematical tools that drastically improve the accuracy of facial recognition systems such as those used at Boston’s Logan Airport; the 2001 Super Bowl; and by the Tampa, Florida police department. John has demonstrated that this facial recognition system exhibits unprecedented robustness and stability under natural variations in face images which can be due to factors like illumination, pose, and blockages. This system achieves a recognition rate of over 90%, or more than 13% better than its nearest competitor.

Face recognition has received a great deal of attention in the popular press, and is already appearing in commercial products for low-risk applications such as personal photo organization (Picasa, iPhoto, etc.). However, despite extensive research and commercial effort, no system exists that is capable of meeting the performance demands of more critical scenarios such as access control.

“This shows that by taking a new and somewhat unconventional view of recognition, we can achieve performance that pushes quite a bit beyond the existing state-of-the-art technology,” said Wright. “It offers hope that by casting the problem in the right way, we can actually deliver systems that work robustly, reliably, and efficiently in the real world.”

When he was informed of his status as the winner of the 2009 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize Wright said, “I was very excited when I found out I'd won. At a university with so many excellent, creative students, this is a tremendous honor. It’s even more of an honor when you consider the strength of all of the finalists -- there are a lot of great ideas here.”

“The Lemelson-MIT Collegiate Student Prize finalists and winners have the potential to be the technological and entrepreneurial leaders of tomorrow,” states Joshua Schuler, Executive Director of the Lemelson-MIT Program. “The winners were selected based on the potential societal impact of their inventions, their ability to act as role models, and their unwavering dedication to invention. These innovators are helping to close the gap between science and societal needs by making contributions that will foster cultural appreciation for invention’s role in strengthening the U.S. economy.” 

This is the third year for the Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize at Illinois, which encourages the creation of sustainable new solutions to real world problems.  The $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize is funded through a partnership with the Lemelson-MIT Program.

Administered by the Technology Entrepreneur Center, the Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize is awarded on an annual basis to an undergraduate or graduate student who has created or improved a product or process, applied technology in a new way, redesigned a system, or demonstrated remarkable innovativeness in other ways.

In addition to Wright, the finalists for this year’s Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize included: Ben Blaiszik – graduate student in Mechanical Science and Engineering; Martin Page – graduate student in Civil and Environmental Engineering; Jang-Ung Park – graduate student in Materials Science and Engineering; Robert Shepherd – graduate student in Materials Science and Engineering; Adam Steele – graduate student in Aerospace Engineering; Han Wu Then – graduate student in Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Murali Venkatesan – graduate student in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

About the Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize 
The $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize is awarded to a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who has demonstrated remarkable inventiveness and innovation. 

The $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize is funded through a partnership with the Lemelson-MIT Program, which has awarded the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize to outstanding student inventors at MIT since 1995. (see: web.mit.edu/invent)   

URBANA, Ill. (January 20, 2009) – Eight finalists for the $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize were recently chosen by a panel of faculty members from across the Urbana campus last week.  The Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize is an extension of the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, which has recognized outstanding student inventors at MIT since 1995.  

A distinguished panel of scientists, technologists, engineers, and entrepreneurs will interview all finalists in the coming weeks, and will choose a winner in mid-February.  The winner will be awarded the prize at a ceremony scheduled for 3:00 p.m. on March 4, 2009 in the auditorium of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), on the University of Illinois campus.  The awards ceremony is open to the public, and will be immediately followed by a brief reception for all attendees.  

The finalists, like the selection committee, represent a variety of areas of expertise. 

Ben Blaiszik– Graduate Student – Mechanical Science & Engineering, College of Engineering

Ben’s work with the Autonomic Materials Group seeks to impart self-healing functionality into many of today’s most common materials in order to prevent catastrophic failure and heal micro-cracking damage. Self-healing materials have the potential to benefit society in a number of ways including: the prevention of weather corrosion damage on bridges, the reduction of material usage to replace worn out parts, and allowing house paint to remain aesthetically pleasing after being scratched.  

Martin Page – Graduate Student – Civil & Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering

Martin has taken the initiative to develop water treatment systems for people in developing regions that do not have access to safe drinking water. Martin’s main contribution, SoChlor, combines solar and monochloramine disinfection, which makes possible the rapid inactivation of viruses in waters containing ammonia, making SoChlor an excellent option for improving drinking water quality in developing regions.  

Jang-Ung Park – Graduate Student – Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering

Jang-Ung and Prof. John Rogers have invented techniques for an electrohydrodynamic jet (e-jet) printing process that can produce patterns and functional devices that establish new resolution benchmarks for liquid printing which significantly exceed those of conventional inkjet technologies. This technology could potentially lead to the printing of various electronic devices, such as flexible computer screens, cell phones, and credit cards at home. 

Robert Shepherd – Graduate Student – Materials Science & Engineering, College of Engineering

Robert is currently working on creating a standard, less complicated, more flexible micro electrical-mechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication route which can generate these parts at rates of 100’s per second using low cost material feed stock. The market for MEMS is emergent and large; with devices encompassing microphones, implantable drug delivery systems, accelerometers, and lenses. These systems are currently used in products such as the iPhone, Nintendo Wii, and vehicle air bags.  

Adam Steele – Graduate Student – Aerospace Engineering, College of Engineering

Adam has created a biomimetic nanocomposite paint that is self-cleaning and non-wetting. This paint is both environmentally friendly and incredibly tough, which means it can be used in a variety of applications. Adam has also developed products to assist visually-impaired individuals in the avoidance of eye level collisions and indoor navigation of large spaces. Lastly, Adam has created SongAlive, a social music website aimed at harnessing the creative power of individuals around the world. 

Han Wui Then – Graduate Student – Electrical & Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

Han Wui in conjunction with Prof. Milton Feng and Prof. Nick Holonyak, Jr., co-invented an ultra-linear laser source that will potentially introduce a four-fold reduction in the complexity of present state-of-the-art solutions. This invention is expected to generate quantum leaps in photonic integrated technologies enabling faster and cheaper network and computer technologies which will increase data speeds by more than ten-fold. 

Murali Venkatesan – Graduate Student – Electrical & Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

Murali in conjunction with Nicholas Watkins is developing an affordable electrical sensing platform for the detection of multiple blood-borne diseases, with one particular platform focusing on HIV/AIDS. The technology uses electrical sensing techniques, namely impedance-based spectroscopy to detect and count CD4 cells (in the case of HIV/AIDS) to identify the presence of the disease in real time. 

John Wright – Graduate Student – Electrical & Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

John has developed new mathematical tools that drastically improve the accuracy of facial recognition systems such as those used at Boston’s Logan airport, the 2001 Superbowl, and by the Tampa, Florida police department. John has demonstrated that this facial recognition system exhibits unprecedented robustness and stability under natural variations in face images, due to illumination, pose, occlusion, etc. This system achieves a recognition rate of 91.4%, more than 13% better than its nearest competitor. 

About the Lemelson-MIT Program

The Lemelson-MIT Program recognizes outstanding inventors, encourages sustainable new solutions to real world problems, and enables and inspires young people to pursue creative lives and careers through invention. It accomplishes this mission through outreach activities and annual awards and grants, including the prestigious $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize and Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams, a non-competitive, team-based invention experience for high school students. Jerome H. Lemelson, one of the world’s most prolific inventors, and his wife, Dorothy, founded the non-profit Lemelson-MIT Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994. More information is online at http://web.mit.edu/invent and www.inventeams.org.  

About the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 
The University of Illinois has long ranked among the nation’s most distinguished teaching and research institutions. As the largest public university in the state, the U of I campus hosts 42,326 students—30,895 undergraduate and 11,431 graduate and professional—its diverse, world-class programs reflect the mission of a comprehensive, land-grant university. Eleven colleges, two institutes, and two schools offer 4,000 courses and 150 programs of study. More than 150 centers, laboratories and institutes perform research for federal and state agencies, private industry and other campus units. In 2005, The U of I spent nearly $500 million on research and development in science and engineering and ranks 16th among U.S. universities for money spent on campus research. 

Patrick Walsh Wins the Second Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize for Inventiveness and Innovation

URBANA, Ill. (April 29, 2008) -- When Patrick Walsh visited India as part of a delegation of Engineers Without Borders (EWB), he expected his life to be impacted.  He just didn’t know how much.

The India trip, following his freshman year in college, put him on a path to change the way 1.6 billion people light their homes.  Walsh’s innovation – a battery-powered, solar-charged LED lamp – was responsible for his being named the winner of this year’s $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize.  The award ceremony was held on February 28th at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“Our university is at the delicious stage, where the institution itself is creative and is itself a seedbed of discovery,” remarked U of I Chancellor Richard Herman, addressing the five finalists and others in attendance at the award ceremony.  “Illinois is now known as one of the leading institutions for creation of new works.  Your inventions embody that idea.”

This is the second year for the Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize at Illinois, which encourages the creation of sustainable new solutions to real world problems.  The $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize is funded through a partnership with the Lemelson-MIT Program.

“Patrick’s solar-powered units are brighter, safer, healthier, longer-lasting, and less expensive light for people with unreliable electricity, or as a main light for people who do not have an electrical connection in the home,” explained Andrew Singer, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the Technology Entrepreneur Center at Illinois.

“By replacing kerosene lamps for lighting within the home, the portable lamp will not only reduce the $38 billion in fuel supplies every year but will also eliminate the health risks both in terms of indoor air quality and the potential for accidental fires that kerosene lamps create,” said Walsh.  His new company, Greelight Planet, Inc. Is preparing to launch the first of its lamps, the SolarFlare, this spring.

As a part-time entrepreneur in training, Walsh took top honors in the University’s V. Dale Cozad Business Plan Competition last year.  In December 2007, he received a Mondialogo Engineering Award, given by a partnership between UNESCO and DaimlerChrysler. Walsh has also received grants from the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) to further prototype development and distribution in India.

Administered by the Technology Entrepreneur Center, the Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize is awarded on an annual basis to an undergraduate or graduate student who has created or improved a product or process, applied technology in a new way, redesigned a system, or demonstrated remarkable innovativeness in other ways.

In addition to Walsh, the finalists for this year’s Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize included: Stephen Diebold – undergraduate student in industrial design, College of Fine & Applied Arts; Christopher Fields – graduate student in chemistry, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences; Yun Fu – graduate student in electrical and computer engineering, College of Engineering; and Shravan Gaonkar – graduate student in computer science, College of Engineering.

About the Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize 
The $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize is awarded to a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who has demonstrated remarkable inventiveness and innovation. 

The $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize is funded through a partnership with the Lemelson-MIT Program, which has awarded the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize to outstanding student inventors at MIT since 1995. (see: web.mit.edu/invent)

Michael Callahan possesses the ability to speak and share his thoughts and ideas with others. This ability to communicate serves as the motivation behind Callahan's latest innovation. The 24-year-old winner of the first $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize hopes to give disabled people back the ability to speak for themselves.

Callahan, a graduate student in Systems and Entrepreneurial Engineering at Illinois, received the prestigious award for a variety of innovative endeavors, including a device that turns unspoken thoughts into spoken words and a "mind-controlled" wheelchair.

"The goal of this award is to recognize the outstanding innovation and invention of the students at the University of Illinois," said Andrew Singer, director of the Technology Entrepreneur Center in the College of Engineering. "The University has an extensive history of innovation, and Michael Callahan is a great example of the type of student we wish to honor with this award."

Spoken Word

Callahan's most recent invention is a device called the Audeo, which translates neurological signals into spoken words or commands for other devices, such as a motorized wheelchair.

"Prior technologies that allowed the disabled to communicate required physical movements like pressing a button or tracking head movements," said Callahan. "The amount of movement required to use these devices makes them inaccessible to severely disabled people. Because our technology does not require physical movement it has created an opportunity to bypass the communicative behaviors imposed by physical disability."

Leading a team of students and researchers, Callahan has begun to realize the potential of this technology. After a recent breakthrough, he and his team has shown the ability to produce fluent speech with 70% accuracy from the neurological signals. It is his hope that this innovation will restore communication for millions of disabled people.

"Michael Callahan's project to help individuals without speech and mobility communicate through the application of neuroscience is truly innovative and deserving of the Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize," said Ray Almgren, National Instruments vice president of product marketing and academic relations. "Using our LabVIEW graphical system design platform, Michael was able to design an application that compares signals from the muscles in the neck and develop a fully functional wheelchair prototype that can be controlled by a person's thoughts. National Instruments is excited to be a part of this project, and we wish Michael continued success."

Ideas in Action

In December 2004, Callahan formed a partnership with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), which has been ranked "Best Rehabilitation Hospital in America" by U.S. News & World Report for the past 15 years. Support from RIC has given him access to their large client base and allowed him to begin human subject testing.

In October 2005, Callahan started a company, Ambient, to commercialize this communication technology.

To promote innovation at the University of Illinois, Callahan is also working to bring resources to students interested in pursuing their ideas. He has been instrumental in creating a laboratory for students involved with the Technology Entrepreneur Center to develop their product ideas. Callahan is also working with Motorola to develop technology innovation for the impoverished people of India.

In addition to winning the Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize, Callahan has won the V. Dale Cozad Business Plan Competition (Social Division, 2006), and was awarded the Ben Jay Rosenthal Award (2005) which is given to the most promising technology entrepreneurship student in the College of Engineering.

About the Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize

The $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize is awarded to a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who has demonstrated remarkable inventiveness and innovation. A distinguished panel of Illinois alumni and friends including scientists, technologists, engineers and entrepreneurs chooses the winner.

The $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize is funded through a partnership with the Lemelson-MIT Program, which has awarded the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize to outstanding student inventors at MIT since 1995.

RPI and MIT Lemelson Student Prize Winners

Nathan Ball, a graduate student in mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the 2007 winner of the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize. Ball received the award for life-saving inventions including the ATLAS Powered Rope Ascender, a portable, battery-powered device that can lift a 250-pound load hundreds of feet into the air in a matter of seconds.

Brian Schulkin, a doctoral student in physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is the first recipient of the $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Student Prize. Schulkin has invented an ultralight, handheld terahertz spectrometer--an advance that could help catapult T-ray technology from the lab bench to the marketplace.

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For information about Michael Callahan?s company and a demonstration of the technology, visit www.theaudeo.com.

For a streaming video of inaugural Lemelson-Illinois Award ceremony, click here.

Contact: Rhiannon Clifton, assistant director, Technology Entrepreneur Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244.4035, rclifton@uiuc.edu.

If you have any questions or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, College of Engineering, 217/244-7716, editor. (posted 21 Feb 2007)

URBANA, Ill. (January 18, 2007) - Eight finalists for the $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize were recently chosen by a panel of faculty members from across the Urbana campus on Wednesday. The new Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize is an extension of the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, which has recognized outstanding student inventors at MIT since 1995.

A distinguished panel of scientists, technologists, engineers, and entrepreneurs will interview all finalists in the coming weeks, and will choose a winner in mid-February. The winner will be awarded the prize at a ceremony scheduled for 9:00 a.m. on February 21, 2007 in the auditorium of the National Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) building, on the University of Illinois campus. The awards ceremony is open to the public, and will be immediately followed by a brief reception for all attendees.

The finalists, like the selection committee, represent a variety of areas of expertise.

Michael Callahan - Graduate Student - Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, College of Engineering

Michael hopes to assist individuals without the use of speech and mobility communicate through the application of neuroscience. By interfacing near the source of vocal production, he has been able to translate unspoken thought of the mind from intercepted neuronal activity at the vocal cords. The method that Michael has developed produces complete fluent speech with 70% accuracy from neurological signals.

Shao Liu - Graduate Student - Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

Shao is the principal inventor of TCP-Illinois, a transport control protocol that dramatically increases the amount of bandwidth that high speed networks can utilize. With the growing popularity of broadband usage by home user comes a greater demand to transmit bulk data very quickly on high speed networks, giving TCP-Illinois promising economic potential.

Matthew Meitl - Graduate Student - Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering

Matthew has developed an entirely new concept in the fields of micro- and nanofabrication and a new fabrication technique that uses kinetically switchable adhesion. Through his work he has created a pick-and-place manufacturing tool capable of incredible throughput and control without moving parts.

Zheng (Richard) Ni - Graduate Student - Chemistry, College of Engineering

Richard aims to use metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) in detection and analysis systems to improve homeland security. Through the guidance of Prof. Richard Masel, Richard has led an undergraduate team and discovered at least 15 new MOF polymers in the past three months and has successfully synthesized eight previously discovered MOFs with high yields.

Craig Robinson - Graduate Student - Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, College of Engineering

Craig has created the Message Dispatcher (MD), a flexible and extensible system architecture to be used on wireless-inter-vehicular communication for safety application. MD defines how a message is created and interpreted by any vehicle and would be used to have vehicles communicate in order to avoid collisions, warn of hazards, prepare for a collision, and in general enhance road safety.

Kumara Sastry - Graduate Student - Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, College of Engineering

Kumara has developed novel competent and efficient multi-scaling methods that enable accurate and rapid modeling of critical physical, chemical, biological, and materials phenomena that will dramatically accelerate both the science and synthesis of new pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and materials. These scientific innovations have led to six patent filings.

Behzad Sharif - Graduate Student - Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

Behzad has been the main contributor to the creation of the Patient-Adaptive Reconstruction and Acquisition in Dynamic Imaging with Sensitivity Encoding (PARADISE). This invention provides unprecedented image quality and resolution for real time Cardiac MRIs and is expected to have considerable clinical impact in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

Renata Sheppard - Graduate Student - Department of Dance, College of Fine and Applied Arts

Renata possesses a distinguished resume of performance work and choreography. In addition to her stage work she is conduction a 9-month tele-immersion project with Klara Nahrstedt. Tele-immersion enables interaction between geographically separated participants through the transmission of multiple 3-D streams, creating a virtual stage. Tele-immersion technology would allow elementary students in Virginia to dance with a teacher in New York and a recovering hip replacement patient to have a physical therapy session without leaving home.

New $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize Available to Undergraduate and Graduate Students

URBANA, Ill. (June 21, 2006) – At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the spirit of invention lives and breathes within the research laboratories, classrooms, hallways, and dorm rooms. Now, the breakthrough ideas conceived by Illinois undergraduate and graduate students can get an additional financial boost with the new $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize that will be awarded beginning in 2007.

The award is being offered through a partnership between the University of Illinois and the Lemelson-MIT Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a non-profit organization that recognizes outstanding inventors, encourages sustainable new solutions to real world problems, and enables and inspires young people to pursue creative lives and careers through invention. The Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize will be awarded annually to an undergraduate or graduate student who has created or improved a product or process, applied a technology in a new way, redesigned a system, or demonstrated remarkable inventiveness in other ways.

“I think this award recognizes the excellence we have here,” explained Ilesanmi Adesida, dean of the College of Engineering at Illinois. “We have a long history of ‘delivering innovation,’ and this award demonstrates that our students are worthy of investment. We are proud to be part of this partnership.”

“The spirit of invention thrives at Illinois, but more can always be done to encourage and support young, creative minds,” said Merton Flemings, director of the Lemelson-MIT Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Our goal is to help give inventive individuals the recognition and additional resources they need to turn their visions into realities.”

The new Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize is an extension of the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, which has recognized outstanding student inventors at MIT since 1995. Recent winners of the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize have invented a personal air vehicle (Carl Dietrich, 2006), new therapies for cancer and stroke (David Berry, 2005), a desktop printer-sized device to mold eyeglass lenses (Saul Griffith, 2004), swarm robots (James McLurkin, 2003), a low-cost rocket engine and aerial surveillance system (Andrew Heafitz, 2002), a “silicon-less” plastic memory chip (Brian Hubert, 2001) and a screenless grain hammermill (Amy Smith, 2000).

The winner of the $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize will be chosen by a distinguished panel of scientists, technologists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. Interested students may apply for the award, and the winner will be announced at a press conference in 2007.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY) joins Illinois as a new partner institution, and will begin offering the new student prizes.

About the Lemelson-MIT Program
The Lemelson-MIT Program recognizes outstanding inventors, encourages sustainable new solutions to real world problems, and enables and inspires young people to pursue creative lives and careers through invention. It accomplishes this mission through outreach activities and annual awards and grants, including the prestigious $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize and Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams, a non-competitive, team-based invention experience for high school students. Jerome H. Lemelson, one of the world’s most prolific inventors, and his wife, Dorothy, founded the non-profit Lemelson-MIT Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994. More information is online at http://web.mit.edu/invent and http://www.inventeams.org.

About the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois has long ranked among the nation’s most distinguished teaching and research institutions. As the largest public university in the state, the U of I campus hosts 41,938 students—30,909 undergraduate and 11,029 graduate and professional—its diverse, world-class programs reflect the mission of a comprehensive, land-grant university. Eleven colleges, two institutes, and two schools offer 4,000 courses and 150 programs of study. More than 80 centers, laboratories and institutes perform research for federal and state agencies, private industry and other campus units. In 2003, The U of I spent $494 million on research and development in science and engineering and ranks 16th among U.S. universities for money spent on campus research.

Contact: Rhiannon Clifton, Technology Entrepreneur Center, College of Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, 217/244-4035, rclifton@uiuc.edu.

Melissa Makofske, Lemelson-MIT Program, 617/452-2170, melm@mit.edu.