Derisking commercialization through world-class customer discovery training and support
News
Hub helps 51 teams enter NSF I-Corps Teams in 2024, bringing in $2.5 million
The NSF I-Corps Hub Mid-Atlantic Region sent 51 research teams to the national NSF I-Corps Teams program in 2024 to explore the commercial potential of their research. Each team received $50,000 to participate, resulting in a total of $2,550,000 acquired funding.
Through the NSF I-Corps Teams program, participants receive direct, hands-on experience in customer discovery—a key step in the entrepreneurial process that involves talking to potential customers, partners and other industry stakeholders. Customer discovery results allow the team to evaluate the commercial potential of their innovation for translation into a successful product and/or service.
Each team conducted more than 100 customer discovery interviews, resulting in well over 5,000 total discussions between researchers and industry stakeholders made possible through I-Corps programs.
All 51 teams are listed below.
10K: Novel Semiconductor Lithography (NC State University)
Principal Investigator (PI) & Team Lead (TL): Martin Thuo, Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, NC State
Entrepreneurial Lead (EL): Julia Chang, Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, NC State
Industry Mentor (IM): Dave Germano, Industry Fellow, Office of Research Commercialization, NC State
AISENSE (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)
PI: Nirmalya Roy, Associate Professor, Department of Information Systems; Director, Mobile, Pervasive and Sensor Computing (MPSC) Lab; and Associate Director, Center for Real-time Distributed Sensing and Autonomy (CARDS), University of Maryland, Baltimore County
TL: Anuradha Ravi, Assistant Research Professor, Department of Information Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
EL: Bipendra Basnyat, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Information Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Senior Data Scientist and Solution Architect, Deloitte
IM: Dave Farnsworth, Owner, Farnsworth Consulting, and Co-Founder and Executive Producer, Fries on Everything, LLC
Autonomous Wireless Charging System for Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) (NC State)
PI: Zeljko Pantic, Associate Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, NC State
TL: Ujjwal Pratik, Ph.D. Student, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, NC State
EL: Stephen Paul, Ph.D. Student, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, NC State
IM: Todd Poston, Director, Engineering, JSI and Managing Director, Strategy, Planning & Innovation, Ridgecrest Street Partners
BabyGroPro (The George Washington University)
PI & TL: Natasha Shur, Professor, Pediatrics, George Washington University
EL: Grey Madison, MS Student, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, George Washington University; and Thomas Shur Johnson
IM: Neil Agate
BET (Binary Expansion Testing) (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
PI & TL: Kai Zhang, Associate Professor, Department of Statistics and Operations Research, UNC
EL: Yuhao Zhou, Ph.D. Student, Department of Statistics and Operations Research, UNC
IM: Kevin Henson, CEO, Prometheus Consulting Group, LLC
Delta Therapeutics (University of Maryland, Eastern Shore)
PI: Bi-Dar Wang, Professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Maryland, Eastern Shore
TL: Siyoung Ha, Research Associate, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Maryland, Eastern Shore
EL: Alyssa Lucero, Graduate Assistant, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Maryland, Eastern Shore
IM: Sarah Beckloff, Chief Executive Officer, Omics Lab Solutions, LLC
DementiAnalytics (The Pennsylvania State University)
PI&TL: Hui Yang, Professor, Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Penn State
EL: Kevin Mekulu, Ph.D. Student, Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Penn State
IM: Andy Atkins, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Invent Penn State
Drizzle Health (The Johns Hopkins University)
PI: Yukari Manabe, Professor, School of Medicine, JHU
PI & TL: Wangda Zuo, Professor and Associate Director for Research of Global Building Network, Penn State
EL: Viswanathan Ganesh, Ph.D. Student, Department of Architectural Engineering, Penn State
IM: Jeffery Carl Almoney, CEO, Almoney Associates and Partner, Ridge Partners LLC
Humimic Biosystems (University of Arkansas)
PI & TL: Kartik Balachandran, Co-Founder and CTO, Humimic Biosystems LLC, and Professor, College of Engineering, University of Arkansas
ELs: Alexis Applequist, Co-Founder and CEO, Humimic BioSystems LLC, and Graduate Research Assistant, College of Engineering, University of Arkansas; and Lance Cordes, Graduate Research Assistant, College of Engineering, University of Arkansas
IM: Katie Thompson, Executive Director, Science Venture Studio at Winrock International
Hydropore (University of Pennsylvania)
PI & TL: Eric Detsi, Associate Professor, Materials Science and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania
Intel-E-Waste (Penn State)
PI & EL: Mohammad Rezaee, Associate Professor, Mining Engineering, Penn State
ELs: Ebrahim Tarshizi and Hassan Amini
IM: Larry Dittmann, Mentor-in-Residence, Invent Penn State Startup Leadership Network
PI: Ahyoung Lee, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, Kennesaw State University
TL: Hoseon Lee, Associate Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Kennesaw State University
EL: Jui Mhatre, Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Computer Science, Kennesaw State University
IM: Chris Montesinos, Economic Development Director, City of Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia
Ionic Devices (University of Maryland)
PI & EL: Keith Gregorczyk, Assistant Research Scientist, Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, UMD
TL: Nam Kim, Assistant Research Scientist, Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics, UMD
IM: Joel Polanco, Segment Manager, Commercial Gaming Vertical, Intel Corporation
Kestrel (Carnegie Mellon University)
PI: Zac Manchester, Assistant Professor, Robotics Institute, CMU
TL: Andrew Goldschmidt, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Computer Science, University of Chicago
EL: Aaron Trowbridge, Research Associate, Robotics Institute, CMU
PI & TL: Chris Walsh, Professor Emeritus, Department of Plant Science & Landscape Architecture, UMD
EL: Kathleen Hunt, Program Management Specialist, Department of Plant Science & Landscape Architecture, UMD
IM: Daniel Evans, Chief Executive Officer, Evans & Company
Most Cool (UMD)
PI & TL: Damena Agonafer, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, UMD
ELs: Andoniaina Randriambololona, Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Mechanical Engineering, UMD; Kidus Guye, Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Mechanical Engineering, UMD; and Vivek Manepalli, Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Mechanical Engineering, UMD
IM: David Andrews, Professor, Department of Kinesiology, UMD
MyEst (UMD)
PI & TL: Hosam Fathy, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, UMD
EL: Yeijin Moon, Research Assistant, Department of Mechanical Engineering, UMD
IM: Sahil Gupta, Co-Founder and Product Lead, Soundskrit
Optimization of Runtime and Energy Consumption (UMD)
PI: Xiaodi Wu, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, UMD
TL: Yuxiang Peng, Alumnus, Ph.D., Department of Computer Science, UMD
EL: Hanrui Wang and Jiaqi Leng, Simons Quantum Postdoctoral Fellow, Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, UC Berkeley
IM: Rob Cohen, Program Manager, Mtech Ventures, UMD
OtherWorldly (UMD)
PI & TL: Michael Douma, Founder, Studio Lead and Creative Director, OtherWorldly
IM: Hilary Longo, Vice President of Marketing, HIGHER DIGITAL, Inc.
PFI-RP: Converting Waste Gas into Clean Hydrogen for Sustainable Steel Production (NC State)
PI & TL: Luke Neal, Research Assistant Professor, NC State University
ELs: Kyle Vogt-Lowell, Ph.D. Student, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, NC State and Casey Killmer, Ph.D. Student, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, NC State
IM: Lakisha Greenwade, Founder and President, Wearable Tech Ventures
Silvec (UMD)
PI & TL: Anne Simon, Professor, Department of Cell Biology & Molecular Genetics, UMD, and Co-Founder and Chief Scientist, Silvec Biologics
ELs: Feng Gao, Assistant Research Scientist, Department of Cell Biology & Molecular Genetics, UMD, and R&D Director, Silvec Biologics; and Rafael Simon, Co-Founder and President, Silvec Biologics
IM: Terry Mah, Founding Partner, Thales Water Advisors
SiteScan (Old Dominion University via UMD)
PI & TL: Dalya Ismael, Assistant Professor, Engineering Technology, Old Dominion
TLs: Weidong Zhu, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, UMBC, and Gang Li, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mississippi State University
EL: Jon Lyu, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Mechanical Engineering, UMBC
IM: Linda Jackson, Director, InfoAge Solutions Inc.
Translation potential of climate change mitigation and adaptation software tools (Penn State)
PI & TL: David Hughes, Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Global Food Security, Penn State
