Startups Enlist Students

At festivities celebrating this year’s Clinic Program, Albert Dato, professor of engineering and associate Clinic director, remarked that the success of Clinic rests on a powerful combination: talented, purpose-driven students (281 participants); industry sponsors invested in meaningful problem-solving; and a campus ecosystem that brings both together. These selected projects—out of 43 total—reflect that synergy, with many sponsored by startups at the forefront of innovation. 

Engineering

Compact Recessed Modular Fan Coil Design for Efficient Hydronic Heating and Cooling

Aris Hydronics Liaisons: Robert Benjamin, Nigel Swehla, Matt Tucker 
Seniors: Andrew Blackett, Samuel Brewer, Bryce Didrickson 
Juniors: Michael Chan, Ivy McFetridge, Morgan Pulling, Cate Synnott, Nick Dass, Gavin Netherton, Alexis Silva 
Advisor: Dre Helmns, assistant professor of engineering 

Aris Hydronics is a Portland-based company developing an all-in-one hydronic system to replace existing gas furnaces, air conditioners and water heaters. The fan coil unit (FCU) of the Aris Hydronics system acts as a single-room air conditioner, providing heated or cooled air to or from the home by transferring energy from or to water. The Aris Hydronics Clinic team was tasked to develop a first-generation recessed FCU that delivers heating and cooling. The unit was created to be modular and fit within standard two-by-four wall framing. 

Engineering

Biomechanical Testing of a Pelvic Fracture Device

CurvaFix Liaisons: Carly Thaler ’95, Eric Whittaker, Kendrick Coburn 
Seniors: Maya Jenkins, Izze Stolzoff, Sara Wexler, Adne Brako 
Juniors: Nyah Hamilton, Angel Perez, Kasey Hartman, Katie Latvakoski 
Advisor: Marissa Sinopoli ’18, assistant professor of engineering 

Each year in the U.S., approximately 200,000 people sustain a pelvic fracture. Traditional plates and screws used to stabilize these fractures fail in 12–75% of cases due to hardware breaking or loosening. CurvaFix designs and manufactures a flexible implant that conforms to the curvature of the pelvis, providing stable fixation through minimally invasive surgery while potentially reducing the risk of hardware failure. The CurvaFix Clinic team developed a biomechanical test to compare the fixation of the CurvaFix Implant against that of traditional plates and screws across fractures in the pelvis. 

Computer Science/Mathematics

Building a Training Arena for Kubernetes Machine Learning Models

Applied Computing Research Labs Liaison: David Morrison ’08 
Seniors: Cate Lewison, Diya Gangwar, Bob Gao, Omar Jimenez, Rui Zhang 
Advisor: Erin Talvitie, associate professor of computer science 

Applied Computing Research Labs (ACRL) is a leader in building solutions to optimize and manage distributed systems applications. ACRL’s work centers on Kubernetes, the ubiquitous platform that drives modern cloud infrastructure. However, Kubernetes remains a complicated ecosystem to debug. Using SimKube, ACRL’s Kubernetes simulator, the Clinic team designed a training arena where reinforcement learning agents learn to handle resource constraints and system errors. This training arena would make SimKube the only complete platform for training RL 

Engineering

Regenerative Loads for Testing High-power Electronics

Exolambda Liaisons: Will Ferenc ’13, Caitlyn Ossa ’24 
Seniors: Slader Spoor, Covadonga Diaz Ruiz, Lucas Lemos, Kanoa Parker, Isabella Hottenrott, Joseph Abdelmalek 
Junior: Broderick Bownds 
Advisor: Matthew Spencer, associate professor of engineering 

Electronic loads are critical to testing modern electronic parts and systems. Traditional electronic loads are resistors, which dissipate power as heat. The Clinic team is developing a regenerative load that can replace a resistor and recycle energy back to a power source. In addition to saving energy, this can reduce cooling needs and facility costs. Exolambda designs, builds and tests avionics and instrumentation for the aerospace industry. 

Engineering

Product Development for Plant-based Alternative Protein

Offbeast Liaisons: Perry Ellis ’11, Brayden Hedrick ’24 
Seniors: Noona Maguire, Alex Robertson, Tali Smith 
Juniors: Allison Barker, Micah Borg, Tracy Han, Emmy Lo 
Advisor: Steve Trank, visiting assistant professor of engineering 

Offbeast is a woman-owned startup based in Baltimore and New York that is creating a vegan alternative to whole cut steaks. The Clinic team has been tasked to improve the current steak bites and expand their product line beyond its current focus of vegan steak replacements to plant-based chicken wings. 

Engineering

Automated Bioreactor Cell Seeding and Harvesting Tool

XDemics Liaisons: Colin Cook, Gabriel Zwillinger ’24, Nicholas Scianmarello 
Seniors: Joshua Heinstein, Andrew Williams, Leilani Elkaslasy, Erin Wang, Emma Angel 
Juniors: Jonathan Tabb, Tiffany Nguyen, Alexa Rosenberg 
Advisor: Angie Lee ’05, visiting assistant professor of engineering 

XDemics is revolutionizing the way cells are grown with their high-density cell respiration bioreactors, enabling linear growth scaling from small lab experiments to mass production. To further improve this process, the XDemics Clinic team designed, prototyped and tested a system to fully automate cell seeding, growth and harvesting. This integration will significantly reduce clean-room technician time and minimize contamination risks, resulting in safer, more efficient biological experimentation.