A Decade of Envisioning Research
We’re celebrating 10 years of scientific observations, explorations and discoveries captured visually by the NC State research community.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Envisioning Research — a contest and collection of captivating scientific videos and images captured across NC State — represents thousands of hours dedicated to discovery.
2025 marks a decade of the Envisioning Research contest. A sustained, collaborative effort across NC State, the competition recognizes the beauty and wonder of research happening on our campus, at its extensions across the state and in fieldwork spanning the globe.
“Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Envisioning Research contest is a profound milestone,” said Darren White, a digital communications manager at The Graduate School. “For a decade, we have championed the extraordinary intersection of science and art, proving that groundbreaking discovery is often best told through a compelling image or video,” said White, who has helped lead the Envisioning Research competition and jury committee since the contest’s beginning.
Matt Shipman, the assistant director of research communications at NC State, first came up with the idea for the Envisioning Research contest.
“We knew that researchers across the university were capturing amazing images as part of their work, whether that was capturing fieldwork or using advanced microscopy,” said Shipman. His role gives him a behind-the-scenes look at the groundbreaking research happening across campus — a perspective worth sharing.
“We created the contest to celebrate this work and bring it to a broader audience,” said Shipman.
Researchers across the university were capturing amazing images … We created the contest to celebrate this work and bring it to a broader audience.
The contest has evolved over the past years. In 2016, there were 11 winners and honorable mentions. Submissions were grouped under microscopy, graphics and illustration, and a category for both photography and microscopy. In the competition’s earlier days, it was open to graduate students, postdocs, faculty and staff only. Then, in 2019, the Envisioning Research committee opened the contest to undergraduate students.
In 2025, the jury saw the largest number of entries – 221 of them, with 38 winners and honorable mentions. Microscopy, photography, video and interactive methods, and graphics and data visualization are the current categories, reflecting updates to methods for visually documenting research today.
To celebrate the past decade, NC State’s Office of Research and Innovation (ORI) created postcards featuring a decade of submissions representing a range of visual media. Those images are included below with a few more from the video category.
We also invite you to embark on a visual journey through the Envisioning Research galleries, where you can view the winning submissions and honorable mentions by year.
Envisioning Research is a collaborative effort between ORI, The Graduate School, the NC State University Libraries, the Office of Undergraduate Research, and University Communications and Marketing.
The decade-long partnership across departments and university resources underscores the unwavering dedication to uphold and promote science and research in unique and engaging ways.
“That commitment is woven into the fabric of the university, and the range of partners involved in making this contest possible really drives that home,” said Krista Walton, vice chancellor for research and innovation.
2025 Faculty/Staff Graphics, 1st Place by Josh Gray
Sea ice in the Arctic has been declining over the past several decades. This psychedelic image near the Kara Strait, Russia, combines Sentinel-1 radar satellite images from the month of January over three years. The colors highlight changes in sea ice amount and location over that time period, demonstrating how radar satellites measure these vast, long-term shifts.
2019 Graduate Student/Postdoc Photography, 1st Place by Theresa Guillette
Researchers examined per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the local American alligator population of coastal North Carolina. Alligators are an excellent example of a ‘sentinel species’ for human health because they are top predators and do not migrate. They can be thought of as the “canaries of the swamp.”
2016 Graduate Student/Postdoc Photography and Microscopy, 2nd Place by Felix Kaess
In a microscopy photograph, a semiconductor material called gallium nitride (GaN) resembles a bridge spanning a river. Material science engineers research GaN’s properties, like its wide bandgap, which makes it suitable for high-power, high-frequency and high-temperature applications. It is used in optoelectronics such as LEDs and lasers.
2020 Graduate Student/Postdoc Microscopy, 1st Place by Siyao Wang
First responders require strong, lightweight and breathable protective suits that can catalytically degrade toxic chemicals. Current protective textiles risk overheating the wearer and exposure to toxic chemical coatings. This microscopic image of a novel textile fiber made from polymers of intrinsic microporosity shows its reaction to solvents, resembling glowing neurons (visually enhanced with colored filters and shiny dots).
2020 Graduate Student/Postdoc Graphics, 1st Place by Phyo Phyo Kyaw Zin
Macrolactones, cyclic molecules of at least 12 atoms, are useful in antiviral and antibiotic drugs. This image visualizes MacrolactoneDB, a database that integrates nearly 14,000 existing macrolactones and their bioactivity information. Each node is a chemical structure colored by its maximal biological activity: green (high), red (low) and white (no reported activity). This visualization technique helps researchers better understand macrolactones and map their chemical linkages.
2020 Undergraduate Student Video, 1st Place by Carmen Mackenzie
This video presents an analysis of ring-tailed lemur vocalizations from the Duke Lemur Center. When a neighboring lemur howled, a family of lemurs produced an intense vocal symphony. A short-time Fourier transform algorithm mathematically analyzes the combined sound, visualizing their frequencies and amplitude via a spectrogram graph.
2019 Faculty/Staff Graphics, 2nd Place by George Elvin
Resilient design strategies can improve the ability of coastal dwellings to adapt to rising sea levels and stronger hurricanes. This ten-square-foot pencil drawing, however, reveals the phenomenological aspects of coastal dwelling that cannot be captured through quantitative research: light and shadow, dynamism and tranquility, depth and surface, meaning and emotion.
2019 Graduate Student/Postdoc Video, 2nd Place by Taylor Neumann
Studying the flow of a composite of tiny liquid metal droplets in silicone provides data on how to pattern it into useful shapes. When force is applied, the material flows through a nozzle but retains its shape once the force is removed. It then solidifies into a stretchable, electrically conductive trace with an insulating surface shell, demonstrating the potential of a one-step process to print circuits.
2016 Graduate Student/Postdoc Graphics, 1st Place by Christopher Kolb
This rendered image shows a core-collapse supernova remnant 17,400 years after a star’s death. A rapidly rotating neutron star at the center generates a powerful wind of charged particles, appearing in blue. The expanding shockwave appears in red and purple, and the stellar ejecta, or expelled material from the exploded star, is shown in red and orange.
2021 Faculty/Staff Microscopy, 1st Place by Matt Bertone
Thrips are a group of insects and a significant pest for growers. These tiny insects, measuring less than 2mm in length, feed on various crops and ornamental plants. This feeding not only makes plants unsightly but can also transmit diseases, such as the Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus.
2018 Student/Postdoc Microscopy, 1st Place by Rashmi Vadlakonda
This 60-micron stainless steel spatter particle is a byproduct of the direct metal laser sintering process. Similar to the spatter produced by welding, powder particles are ejected from the melt pool, creating a golf ball-like oxide effect. This property is distinct from the original powder feedstock, seen in the image’s margins — a phenomenon that has yet to be documented in published literature.
2025 Undergraduate Student Microscopy, 1st Place by Brent Curlis
Red crystals were formed by a cyclometalated platinum(II) complex and captured by a confocal micrograph. This platinum(II) complex can form two crystal structures, exhibiting either red or yellow emission — or transition between the two, depending on the solvent and other conditions. The experiment sought to reliably manipulate the structure and eliminate the presence of the less stable yellow form.
2021 Graduate Student/Postdoc Graphics, 1st Place by Remi Fayad
Researchers developed a novel method for photochemical upconversion in water. This graphic illustrates how two lower-energy photons (cyan blue light) generate a high-energy photon (deep blue light) using a light absorber and an energy acceptor. This research could open new avenues for studying various photoredox applications utilizing common metals as the photosensitizer.
2025 Faculty/Staff Microscopy, 1st Place by Blake Kennedy
Ceramic samples were scanned with an electronic microscope for analysis of their physical structure and post-firing chemistry. The image represents both scientific data and an edited visual composition. This process is part of a co-curricular activity for a material science and engineering course that bridges art and science, supporting students to connect creative studio techniques with industrial processes.
2017 Faculty/Staff Microscopy, 1st Place by Rich Spontak
This unedited polarized light microscope image captures the crystal formation of a specific polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) cast from chloroform. The structure features plaque-like formations surrounding a fingerprint-like domain. The molecules lock together, enabling the POSS to form a continuous surface that protects polymers against X-rays and UV light.
2024 Graduate Student/Postdoc Photography, Honorable Mention by Micki Recchuiti
Researchers sampled lava from active eruptions to gain a better understanding of how the chemistry and physics of a magma chamber can fuel an active eruption. Through field observations paired with sample data, the research team determined the viscosity and mineralogy of lavas.
2021 Graduate Student/Postdoc Video, 2nd Place by Keith Hillaire
EGaIn is a liquid metal alloy at room temperature. Its high surface tension is seven times stronger than that of water. This amount of tension should prevent it from forming wavelike, branching shapes. However, oxidizing EGaIn lowers its surface tension, enabling it to extend into finger-like forms. By increasing the volume of EGaIn, the wavelength of the fingers grows.
2023 Graduate Student/Postdoc Microscopy, 1st Place by Ross Lampe
LGR5 is a well-established marker for stem cells, including follicular and intestinal stem cells. However, using a transgenic pig model, LGR5-expressing cells (shown in green) were observed to populate the basal layer of large lung airways, situated beneath the red epithelial layer.
2022 Graduate Student/Postdoc Microscopy, Honorable Mention by Yosra Kotb
Bisphenol A (BPA) epoxy coatings, widely used in food can linings, are under scrutiny due to the toxicity of the BPA precursor. This image shows a BPA-based coating degrading into blisters after exposure to an aggressive acidic food stimulant. Analyzing the molecular properties of the chemical coating’s protective function can aid in the innovation of safer alternatives.
2024 Graduate Student/Postdoc Graphics, 1st Place by Sergei Rigin
Polymer structures found in the microworld can appear visually similar to human-scale objects, such as a forest. This graphic illustrates the phenomenon of nature’s ability to replicate its artistic patterns across different scales.
