Announcing the 2021–2022 JUMP into STEM Challenge Winners

This competition has shown that the next generation of building scientists is ready to respond to the demands of climate change, with both urgency and equity at the heart of technical solutions. We are extremely impressed by the quantity and quality of this year’s submissions, making the 2021–2022 program a very competitive field.

Equal Access to Healthy Indoor Air

• • Challenge Winner: Easiair from University of Idaho (Tais Mitchell and Jason Talford)
  • Challenge Runner-Up: IAQ Accessibility Improvers from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Nishka Chawla and Julia Rios)

Solving Market Adoption for Emerging Efficiency Technologies

• • Challenge Winner: Solar City from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Carson Bryan, Tyler Elsom, Sachin Gokhale, and Matthew Hyland)
  • Challenge Runner-Up: Ensuring That Pacific Northwest Residents Get Efficient Air Conditioners from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (David Mason, Carson Rinkenberger, and Eli Silva)

Resilience for All in the Wake of Disaster

• • Challenge Winner: Advancing Resilient Communities in Remote Areas from The University of Utah (Samantha Eddy, Xiang Huo, Xinyan Liu, and Xinyang Rui)
  • Challenge Runner-Up: Team Hephaestus from Vanderbilt University (Francisco Diaz-Rodriguez, Jillian Flynn, Alex Holzke, and Ethan Rand)

The number of high-quality submissions in the resilience category made for an especially competitive field, and the JUMP into STEM management team would like to recognize the additional honorable mentions in the Resilience for All in the Wake of Disaster category:

Honorable Mentions:

• • Backup Power in the Wake of Disaster to Increase Hazard Resilience in Low Income Communities from University of Tennessee, Knoxville (Natasha Ghezawi, Alexandra Kahl, and Kyra Owensby)
  • Solar Schools from University of Kansas (Michelle Chen, Liken Hanato, Michael Le, and Alexis Ng)
  • Implementation of Affordable Wildfire Prevention Plans from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo