WASHINGTON — The Transportation Research Board’s Airport Cooperative Research Program has selected winners for its latest University Design Competition for Addressing Airport Needs. This annual competition encourages students to design innovative and practical solutions to challenges at airports.

Four first-place winners were chosen across the four technical challenge areas: Airport Environmental Interactions; Airport Safety, Operations, and Maintenance; Passenger Experience and Innovations in Airport Terminal Design; and Airport Management and Planning.

The first-place winning teams in each category are:

Airport Environmental Interactions Challenge:
Isaiah Vahos, Juin Park, and James Deal from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s School of Graduate Studies won first place for their proposal titled Transforming Airport Stormwater Mitigation with LiDAR Innovation. Their faculty adviser was Chuyang Yang.

Airport Safety, Operations, and Maintenance Challenge:
Joel Samu and David C. Morell from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s School of Graduate Studies won first place for their proposal titled Enhancing Airport Safety Through Multi-Modal Aerial Object Detection in Airport Environments. Their faculty adviser was Chuyang Yang.

Passenger Experience and Innovations in Airport Terminal Design Challenge:
Isabella Deberghes, Clarabelle Watson, Dante Delgado, and Neelesh Raj from Vanderbilt University’s School of Engineering won first place for their proposal titled Reducing Wheelchair Mishandling in Airports. Their faculty adviser was Courtney Johnson.

Airport Management and Planning Challenge:
Ishan Agrahar, Peyton Aversa, Evan Mueller, Jacob Reehorst, and Adon Yovkochov from Pennsylvania State University’s School of Engineering Design and Innovation Building won first place for their proposal titled Expandabin. Their faculty advisers were Abbie Canale and Meredith Handley.

Additionally, second- and third-place awards were given. Teams from University of Colorado, Boulder, Florida Institute of Technology, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and Purdue University won second-place awards; and teams from Purdue University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University won third-place awards.

Students were invited to propose innovations in any of the four technical challenge areas. The competition requires that students work with a faculty adviser and that they reach out to airport operators and industry experts for advice and to assess the practicality of their proposed design solutions. ACRP manages the competition while funding is provided by the Federal Aviation Administration. Volunteer panels of airport industry practitioners review and judged the submissions based on a standard scoring criteria.

Winning teams receive $3,000 for first place, $2,000 for second place, and $1,000 for third place, and will be given the opportunity to present their proposals at an industry professional conference or workshop in 2026.

The names of all winners and copies of designs receiving place awards will be made available at https://www.trb.org/ACRP.

The Airport Cooperative Research Program is an industry-driven, applied research program that develops near-term, practical solutions to airport challenges. The program is managed by the Transportation Research Board, which is a program unit of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine — private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, engineering, and medicine. The National Academies operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln. For more information, visit https://national-academies.org.

Contact:
Solomon Self, Media Relations Officer
Office of News and Public Information
202-334-2138; email news@nas.edu