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  • Engineering for Good

    Engineering for Good

    Invention education programs inspired this young inventor to pursue engineering to make an impact in people’s lives.

  • Fighting Global Infant Mortality Through Hypothermia Detection

    Fighting Global Infant Mortality Through Hypothermia Detection

    Biomechanical engineer Ratul Narain’s monitoring devices help detect hypothermia and other illnesses in underweight newborns. Every year, 20 million clinically underweight babies are born worldwide. Of these, eight million are born in India, where many parents don’t have easy access to neonatal care resources. Yet low birth weight — generally defined as less than five…

  • It’s Not Always Easy Being Green, But It Should Be

    It’s Not Always Easy Being Green, But It Should Be

    A pioneer in the field of green chemistry, John Warner talks about the successes and challenges in creating sustainable change. John Warner is, to put it mildly, passionate about his work. He is a prolific inventor holding more than 300 patents, as well as an educator and entrepreneur. He is most passionate when talking about…

  • From Plastic Surgeon-in-Training to Inventor: How a Family Tragedy Led One Latina to Improve Lung Disease Diagnosis for the World

    From Plastic Surgeon-in-Training to Inventor: How a Family Tragedy Led One Latina to Improve Lung Disease Diagnosis for the World

    Maria Artunduaga is the CEO and founder of Samay, a successful startup aimed at providing low-cost, at-home diagnostics for dangerous respiratory conditions. At age 34, Maria Artunduaga took a leap of faith. Ambitious and focused, she was studying plastic surgery — a highly competitive specialty — at University of Chicago Medicine, on track to become…

  • As Earth Heats Up, This Inventor is Focused on Keeping Cool

    As Earth Heats Up, This Inventor is Focused on Keeping Cool

    As the climate heats up throughout much of the globe, more and more people are dependent on air conditioning to live comfortably. But the very technology that helps them stay cool is contributing to the rising temperatures it’s trying to combat. MIT lecturer and engineer Sorin Grama is focused on trying to break that cycle,…

  • How One High School Teacher and an Invention Project Made All the Difference

    How One High School Teacher and an Invention Project Made All the Difference

    Now a satellite orbital analyst, Ford Grundberg used to intentionally blow off his schoolwork. Then an invention education experience changed his life trajectory. Ford Grundberg was a sophomore in high school in Natick, Massachusetts, when he met Doug Scott. It was during a study hall, and Mr. Scott was the teacher overseeing the students. “At…

  • Microtechnology, Medicine and Mentoring: One Inventor’s Formula for Success

    Microtechnology, Medicine and Mentoring: One Inventor’s Formula for Success

    Sangeeta Bhatia is a leader in advancing human health care — and a role model for other women interested in STEM. At her lab at MIT, Sangeeta Bhatia is singlehandedly inspiring a new generation of inventors through a combination of humor and pragmatism. “One thing I like to tell the students, just to set their…

  • Meet the Woman Who Forged an Entirely New Scientific Field

    Meet the Woman Who Forged an Entirely New Scientific Field

    Chemical biologist Carolyn Bertozzi is blazing a trail in the way cancer and other diseases may be diagnosed and treated.

  • From Nature to New Materials: This MIT Professor’s Inventions Are Rooted in Biology

    From Nature to New Materials: This MIT Professor’s Inventions Are Rooted in Biology

    An abalone shell inspired Angela Belcher to pursue a career in engineering and cancer research.  Angela Belcher likes to make things. Her medium of choice? Atoms.  “When you take a couple of atoms and you arrange them in different ways and build them into different shapes,” she says, “it changes their properties.”  In nature, those…

  • Engineer and Children’s Author Arlyne Simon Breaking Barriers for Female Patent Holders

    Engineer and Children’s Author Arlyne Simon Breaking Barriers for Female Patent Holders

    Simon describes her own invention journey and how she works to inspire other young women and girls to enter STEM fields. At first, biomedical engineer, inventor, and author Arlyne Simon didn’t consider the possibility of becoming an entrepreneur or patent holder. “I don’t think I really associated those terms with something that I would have,…

  • How Adversity Led to a Lifetime of Engineering and Invention

    How Adversity Led to a Lifetime of Engineering and Invention

    Dr. Rory A. Cooper is a veteran, an athlete and the holder of more than 20 groundbreaking patents in wheelchair and other assistive technology.

  • Solving the Food Supply Chain Through Chemistry

    Solving the Food Supply Chain Through Chemistry

    The New Frontier of Combating Food Waste Chemist Aidan Mouat has created a sustainable product that could save a quarter of a billion pounds of produce from going bad this year alone. Next time you pop a grape into your mouth, consider its path from the field to your palate. From harvest to packing to…

  • How Two Sustainability-Minded Inventors Are Changing the Way Food Could Be Grown in the Future

    How Two Sustainability-Minded Inventors Are Changing the Way Food Could Be Grown in the Future

    Skyler Pearson and Hugh Neri are striving to make vertical farming more effective – and more affordable – through their innovative company, Nexgarden Skyler Pearson and Hugh Neri of Portland, Oregon, are not your typical farmers. They’re inventors and entrepreneurs, and they spend much of their time in front of computers, on a quest to…