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Research and Innovation

Envisioning Research Winners Capture the Beauty in Their Work

multi-colored shards of material, resembling a stained-glass window
The second-place graduate student entry in the microscopy category is from Shelby Boyd.

From plants to peacocks, black holes to drug delivery, the winners of the 2021 Envisioning Research contest highlighted the myriad ways that their work shows us the beauty of our world – and helps us understand it.

The contest is a collaborative effort by NC State’s Office of Research and Innovation, the Graduate School, the NC State University Libraries, the Office of Undergraduate Research and University Communications and Marketing. Envisioning Research was open to faculty, staff, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and undergraduates.

A complete list of winners, runners-up and honorable mentions is below. You can see high-res versions of each entry, as well as captions about each image, by clicking on a winning entry’s name.

Graphics & Data Visualization

First Place, Graduate Students and Postdocs: Remi Fayad, a graduate student in the College of Sciences, for “Photochemical Upconversion in Micellar Assemblies.”

Second Place, Graduate Students and Postdocs: Sharda Pandit, a graduate student in the College of Engineering, for “Drug Depots Within Tumor Tissue.”

Microscopy

First Place, Graduate Students and Postdocs: Sarah Orr, a graduate student in the College of Sciences, for “Brushlegged Mayfly.

Second Place, Graduate Students and Postdocs: Shelby Boyd, a postdoctoral researcher in the College of Sciences, for “Microscopic Peacock Tail: Fanning Zinc Chloride Trihydrate Crystals.”

Honorable Mention, Graduate Students and Postdocs: Matthew Neubauer, a postdoctoral researcher in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, for “Fluorescent Root Tips.”

Honorable Mention, Graduate Students and Postdocs: Mariam Sohail, a graduate student in the College of Engineering, for “Nanoparticles on Tomato Leaf.”

First Place, Faculty and Staff: Matt Bertone, a faculty member in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, for “Close up (z-stacked) of the head and thoracic region of an adult Western flower thrips (Thysanoptera: Frankliniella occidentalis).”

Photography

First Place, Graduate Students and Postdocs: Evan Jevnikar, a graduate student in the College of Sciences, for “March of the Paleontologists.”

Second Place, Graduate Students and Postdocs: Ryan Bohannon, a graduate student in the College of Natural Resources, for “Foggy Sunrise Among Dying Ash Trees.

Honorable Mention, Graduate Students and Postdocs: Andrew Blythe, a graduate student in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, for “Giant foxtail (Setaria faberi).”

Honorable Mention, Graduate Students and Postdocs: Alejandro Valdes, the College of Sciences, for “NC State in a Flask.

First Place, Faculty and Staff: Matt Bertone, a faculty member in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, for “Nymph and adult of the giant strong-nosed stink bug, Alcaeorrhynchus grandis (Pentatomidae).”

Second Place, Faculty and Staff: David Suchoff, a faculty member in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, for “Mature CBD Hemp at Harvest.”

Video & Interactive

First Place, Undergraduate Students: Anna Taylor and Andrew Igdal, undergraduates in the College of Sciences, for “Wind Driven Accretion onto a Black Hole.”

First Place, Graduate Students and Postdocs: Farnaz Fazelpour, a graduate student in the College of Sciences, for “Photoelastic Force Visualization.”

Second Place, Graduate Students and Postdocs: Keith Hillaire, a graduate student in the College of Sciences, for “Liquid Metal Fingers.”

Honorable Mention, Graduate Students and Postdocs: Joseph Gutierrez, a graduate student in the College of Natural Resources, for “Biomimicking Structural Colors with Wood Nanocrystals.”

Honorable Mention, Graduate Students and Postdocs: Maria Aleman, a graduate student in the College of Engineering, for “Vortex Shedding Behind a Cylinder.”

First Place, Faculty and Staff: Roland Kays, a faculty member in the College of Natural Resources, for “Arctic Animal Movement.”

Second Place, Faculty and Staff: Justin Johnson, a faculty member in the College of Design, for “Virtual Nature for Mental Restoration.”