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The 2025 Research Excellence Exhibit more than lived up to its name

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two members of the NYU Robotics Design Team hold up a small robotic vehicle

The NYU Robotics Design Team was one of over 30 student groups participating in this years Research Excellence Exhibit

If you were passing by Brooklyn Commons last month and had seen rows of white tents, colorful decorations, food trucks, and tables of giveaways, you might have thought a carnival or other festive occasion was going on. You would have been partially right. It was, in fact, a celebration of sorts — a celebration of scientific research, intellectual curiosity, and technological advances.

NYU Tandon’s annual Research Excellence Exhibit was in full swing, and dozens of student and faculty projects were on display.

Watch highlights from this year's exhibit

The annual exhibit has been held since 2013, as a way of celebrating the accomplishments of the school’s researchers and illustrating to the general public the scope of engineering and the applied sciences — and their potential for improving the world.

Attendees were treated to demonstrations of DNA biosensors, medical wearables, a virtual “dive” into urban flooding, and much more, showcasing the most exciting work being done in Tandon’s labs and prototyping facilities. (Among the most popular exhibits with visitors of all ages were autonomous vehicles and robots of various sorts, from humanoid to spider-like.)

Also roaming the displays was a team of judges, who had the unenviable task of identifying the most compelling and world-changing projects. After they had visited every table, they chose three projects from among the school’s Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) program (an initiative involving large, multidisciplinary teams of students who collaborate over the course of several semesters) and three that represented vital topics like sustainability and healthcare.

VIP category winners


First Place – Project Mjolnir: Adaptive Mountain Bike

group of students posing along side a recumbent rugged terrain bike


Second place – Vision Empowered: Innovative Wearable Solutions for the Visually
Impaired

three students posing with a mannequin wearing a Tandon t-shirt and glasses attached to a electric consul


Third place – Plastic Degradation via Microbial Consortium

diverse group of students standing by their research poster at the Research Excellence Exhibit


Research Excellence category winners:


First place – Engineering Nanomedicines to Address Unmet Needs in Healthcare

student pointing at computer screen while explaining research to judge


Second place – The Renewthanol Process: CO2-derived Ethanol Production via Pulsed-Potential Electrocatalysis

Dean Aydil flanked by two grad students in front of the Research Exhibit decorative entrance


Third place – MINDWATCH: An Inference Engine for Tracking Cognitive Arousal for Mental Well-being

Group of graduate students posing by research poster at Research Excellence Exhibit

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