LEMELSON PROGRAM
The Lemelson-MIT Prize Program will award the second annual $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize this spring to an MIT student "who displays a remarkable talent for invention."
Candidates for the 1996 Student Prize must be MIT seniors graduating in June or graduate students. Applications for the prize must be received in the office of the Lemelson-MIT Prize Program at E38-129 on or before Friday, March 8.
Applications consist of five copies of the following: an application form available from the program office, a description in 500 words or less of the applicant's inventiveness while at MIT, and two letters of recommendation from MIT faculty members or research scientist staff.
The Lemelson-MIT Student Prize is one of many activities supported by the Lemelson-MIT Prize Program at MIT. Established in 1994 by Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson-he is America's most prolific living inventor-the goal of the program is to foster American invention and innovation by raising public awareness and celebrating accomplishments in the fields of science, engineering, medicine and entrepreneurship.
Based at the Sloan School, the Prize Program recognizes outstanding contemporary US inventors each year through its "Ingenious Awards."
Chief among these is a $500,000 award-the world's largest single prize for inventiveness and creativity-which will be announced on April 11.
The first Lemelson-MIT Student Prize was awarded last June to Thomas H. Massie, an MIT graduate student in mechanical engineering, for demonstrating inventiveness in such diverse areas as solar cars, robotics, computer interfaces and household devices like plant watering and weaving machines.
A blue-chip panel of inventors, scientists and entrepreneurs will review candidates for the 1996 prize.
Additional information can be obtained by calling the Prize Program office at x3-3352 or sending e-mail to
BFGOODRICH CONTEST
Submissions are now being accepted for the BFGoodrich Collegiate Inventors Program, a national competition which recognizes undergraduate and graduate students whose innovations, discoveries and research are deemed the year's most outstanding.
The invention, idea or process submitted must be an original idea and the work of a student or team with his or her university advisor. In addition, the invention should be reproducible, and may not have been made available to the public as a commercial product or process, or patented or published more than one year prior to the date of submission. The program is open to any student enrolled full time in a US college or university. Winners and advisors can receive prizes of up to $5,000.
Previous MIT students who have been recognized in the BFGoodrich competition are Johannes Thijssen, a graduate student in chemical engineering in 1991, and John Rogers, a graduate student in chemistry in 1995 for a thin-film nondestructive testing technique.
More information is available from Nancy Schondorf in the Technology Licensing Office, Rm E32-300, x3-6966. Entries must be received by June 4, 1996.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on January 31, 1996.
