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For the first time in three years, the lively New Venture Challenge (NVC) championship returned to an in-person format at the Â鶹ӰԺ Theater this week to recognize CU Â鶹ӰԺ’s top emerging entrepreneurs.

The global shortage of semiconductors – the computer chips that products such as smartphones, laptops, cars and even washing machines rely on – are motivating engineers to improve the inspection of the silicon wafers that semiconductors are fabricated from. To help accomplish that, Department of Mechanical Engineering students have built a silicon wafer center-finding improvement device.

The students' device makes the disposal of scrap metal safer and more efficient. They completed the design as part of their Senior Design project sponsored by Accu-Precision, a Littleton-based manufacturer of custom parts for customers in aerospace and industrial sectors.

First-year PhD students Juliet Heye and Payton Martinez were awarded the five-year fellowship, which recognizes outstanding graduate students from across the country in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.

The vacuum, designed and built by the student team Urchin Merchants, could help save California’s underwater kelp forests by making it easier for divers to collect the purple sea urchins that are destroying the bull kelp population.

Briar Goldwyn is a fourth-year PhD student researching multi-hazard housing safety and disaster risk reduction. She recently returned from fieldwork in Puerto Rico.

The Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering recognized Martinez's research on membrane technologies that can ensure more scientifically reliable water treatment filtration systems.

Caleb Cord (PhDEnvEngr'22) is the first author on a new paper in Science of The Total Environment that looks at water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services in developing countries from the systems level.

Computer science PhD student Christine Chang was recently invited to testify before the Colorado Senate Committee on Business, Labor, and Technology on SB22-113 – a piece of proposed legislation that deals with artificial intelligence, facial recognition technology and related privacy issues.

The Early Engineering Exposure Fair, organized by mechanical engineering graduate students, was comprised of 16 interactive exhibits to demonstrate diverse engineering fields such as air quality, wind energy, robotics and microfluids.