The 10 JUMP into STEM final competition winners and management team include top row left to right: Kyra Owensby, Alexandra Kahl, Samantha Eddy, Xinyang Rui, Alka Khadka. Middle row, left to right: Haley Matthews, Aryanna Sanchez, Xiang Huo, Grant Walker, Xinyan Liu. Bottom row, left to right: Dr. Fredericka Brown, DOE; Dr. Kim Trenbath, NREL; and Dr. Yeonjin Bae, ORNL. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy
Ten students representing four U.S. universities recently earned top honors during the annual JUMP into STEM competition held virtually by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and sponsored by the Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office.
Competing in teams, the students were challenged with developing solutions to some of the nation’s most timely energy issues such as providing access to healthy indoor air; developing resilience for all in the wake of disaster and solving market adoption for emerging efficiency technologies.
The four winning teams that were selected from nine total included:
- University of Tennessee, Knoxville - Alexandra Kahl and Kyra Owensby, “Backup Power in the Wake of Disaster,”
- Oklahoma State University - Alka Khadka and Grant Walker, “R3ER Shelter Design: Cowboy Covers,”
- University of Utah’s - Samantha Eddy, Xiang Huo, Xinyan Liu, and Xinyang Rui, “Advancing Resilient Communities in Remote Area,” and
- Embry-Riddle’s - Aeronautical University’s Haley Matthews and Aryanna Sanchez, “Eagles for Energy.”
“Even though our competition was virtual again this year, the participants were very engaged and presented exceptional proposals. We were excited to see that students from various backgrounds and different majors brought brilliant ideas together,” Yeonjin Bae, JUMP into STEM lead at ORNL, said.
Bae added that the teams were part of the largest competition to date, with 84 ideas submitted from 251 students at 27 different schools from across the country. The winners were offered 10-week paid summer internships at ORNL, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory or Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
JUMP into STEM started as an online crowdsourcing community launched by ORNL in 2015 to motivate engagement in STEM field research and innovation through challenges sponsored by industry and the national labs. In 2018, a pilot program was launched to engage students, universities and college professors through competition. The initiative continues to inspire the next generation of building scientists by focusing on creative ideation and diversity in the building science field. Undergraduate and graduate students currently enrolled in a U.S. college or university, 18 years of age or older, are eligible to participate.
In addition to the collaborating national laboratories, the competition was sponsored by industry supporters DRC Construction, Hy Stor Energy and Clayton Home Building Group.
Read the full release: https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/articles/bto-announces-winners-jump-stems-final-competition
