Alexandria, Va. – October 16, 2026 -- A wallet-sized CPR guidance patch from the University of Washington and a radiation-scatter device from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine took the $10,000 first prizes at the 2026 Collegiate Inventors Competition, which drew 25 students from nine U.S. colleges and universities.
Ten finalist teams, five undergraduate and five graduate, presented to a final-round panel of National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductees and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) officials. Winning teams receive cash awards plus a USPTO Patent Acceleration Certificate. The competition, established in 1990, is a program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and is sponsored by the USPTO.
CPRight targets a 90% out-of-hospital cardiac mortality rate
The undergraduate winner, CPRight, is a single-use patch placed on a patient's sternum. LED cues show a rescuer in real time whether compression depth and rate are effective, with no additional equipment required. The team cites more than 350,000 Americans experiencing a heart attack outside a hospital each year, with about 90% dying. The team members are Shubham Bansal, Prisha Hemani, Deeya Sharma and Nikhita Vaddineni; the adviser is Tristan Jafari.
ClearView-Jaw addresses a 60% complication rate in head and neck cancer care
The graduate winner, ClearView-Jaw from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, targets titanium plates that secure reconstructed jaws after tumor removal. The plates can distort high-dose radiation, shielding tumor cells and scattering radiation into healing tissue. About 60% of patients develop a complication within five years. The device reduces backscatter and shadowing so clinicians can target tumors more precisely. Team members are William McKay, Zachary Spears and Amogh Vellore; advisers are Anish Ghodadra and Matthew Spector.
Runners-up take $5,000 each for knee rehab sleeve and rotator cuff hydrogel
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's KAIRS (Knee Artificial Intelligence Rehabilitation Sleeve) won the undergraduate runner-up prize. It combines a sensor-embedded sleeve, a mobile app and a cloud-based machine learning model to track knee range of motion and movement quality during at-home exercise, giving clinicians remote monitoring.
New York University's BioAxis won the graduate runner-up prize. Developed by Vitalis Regenerative Materials Inc., the single-use, point-of-care device combines a patient's platelet-rich plasma with a prefilled bioresorbable polymer to form a tissue-adherent hydrogel. It targets partial-thickness rotator cuff tears, which affect about 3 million Americans annually, in patients who do not meet the threshold for full surgical repair.
NeuTrode wins $2,000 People's Choice Award with gel-free EEG electrode
The University of South Florida's NeuTrode is a flexible EEG electrode that maintains scalp contact without gels or liquids. It adapts to different hair densities, skin conditions and head shapes, and enables faster setup. The team is Bridget Clift, Cristina Ramirez-Vargas and Addison Whitehead, advised by Nathan Schilaty.
National Inventors Hall of Fame CEO Monica Jones said the program aims to give young inventors the chance to learn from Inductees as role models.