Notre Dame professors win Commercialization Awards
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Two University of Notre Dame professors received cash prizes in this year’s 1st Source Bank Commercialization Awards. The awards are given to faculty from Notre Dame or the Indiana University School of Medicine-South Bend who have “successfully transitioned their technologies from the lab to the marketplace.”
Notre Dame Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering Thomas O’Sullivan took the $25,000 first place prize for the NearWave Imager, a handheld device designed to help doctors determine if a treatment is working to shrink or kill a tumor.
The device is able to deliver that information within a week, rather than the typical 6-12 months it currently takes to make the determination.
Additionally, Notre Dame says the technology is showing promising results in the ability to differentiate between benign and malignant tumors in a non-invasive fashion.
O’Sullivan co-founded the startup NearWave along with CEO Dr. Roy Stillwell to commercialize the device, the idea for which came from a graduate class taught by O’Sullivan, Notre Dame said.
NearWave, which was spotlighted by Inside INdiana Business in April 2022, has raised $1.5 million in outside investment and is in the midst of a seed round with multiple investors.
The $10,000 second-place prize went to Tengfei Luo, the Dorini Family Professor for Energy Studies at Notre Dame. Luo has developed technology to produce poylmer materials that can be applied to multiple uses, including ballistic armor, sports gear and thermal management.
The technology led to the founding of Tessellated Inc., which is exploring the use of the polymer material to protect satellites and spacecraft from space debris, as well as the optimization of thermal regulation in energy systems, specifically electric vehicles, according to Notre Dame.
Tessellated has received multiple STTR Phase I grants from the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force. The Army has also granted an STTR Phase II grant for further research.
The Commercialization Award was established in 2008 with a $1 million grant from South Bend-based 1st Source Bank.