NAI Chapter Pitch Competition presenters
Congratulations to the winners of the University of Georgia National Academy of Inventors Chapter Pitch Competition!
Last Friday, fourteen graduate students and postdocs brought their boldest ideas to the stage, and the innovation on display was nothing short of inspiring. A huge congratulations to the winners:
First place: Pravalika Irukulla (College of Engineering PhD student) — Photocontrolled nitric oxide biomaterials for on-demand antimicrobial wound care
Second place: Alexander Jochmans (College of Veterinary Medicine)— Bugs, drugs, and the brain: An engineered probiotic for Parkinson’s disease
Third place: Arpita Shome (College of Engineering Postdoctoral Associate) — A scalable lubricant-free antibiofouling platform for blood-contacting medical devices
Audience Choice Award: Andrew Ring (College of Pharmacy Postdoctoral Associate) — miRAssist: Powering microRNA target discovery with AI-ready evidence integration
From smart wound-healing materials to engineered probiotics tackling neurodegenerative disease to next-generation medical device coatings to AI-powered drug discovery tools, this year’s presenters are proof that the next wave of biomedical innovation is already here.
Thank you to all the presenters for sharing your research and vision, and to everyone who came out to support them. This is exactly the kind of translational thinking the NAI exists to champion.
