Announcements

Winners Selected for the 2025 Nutshell Games

October 23: Packed with wild ideas like “poop to the rescue,” “rubber that fixes itself,” and “listening to the coldest whisper in the universe," the 2025 Nutshell Games was just as fun for the audience as it was for the speakers. And although we consider every one of the 29 presenters to be winners, here are the official judges' picks and audience choice award winner:

• Monica Shanmugam, Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, "A jet engine that can talk back"

• Beyza Nur Guler, Engineering Education, "Who swiped left on my job application?"

• Gabe Isaac, Neuroscience, "Ultrasound: A new tune for treating pain"

• Binita Saha, Macromolecular Science and Engineering, "What if bacteria helped fight cancer?"

Judging Panel:

• Greta Bieri, Blacksburg Middle School 7th grader
• Barb Glaser, Blacksburg resident and retired teacher
• Josh Grace, director of the Academy of Transdisciplinary Studies, Virginia Tech
• Dickson Otieno, program associate, CALS Global (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Virginia Tech)
• Tavia Pigg, Virginia Tech alum who recently found her way back “home” after four decades away
• Ido Simundza, Blacksburg Middle School 7th grader 
• Aimée Surprenant, dean for graduate education, Virginia Tech

    Watch the talks — and cast your vote for the final award!

    The talks are now available to watch on the Center for Communicating Science YouTube channel, and it’s your turn to decide what talk receives the final award: Most Watched Video!

    Whichever talk earns the most views by Thursday, December 5, at 8 a.m. will take home the title. So find your favorites, share them with friends, and remember — every full watch counts as a “vote.”

    Each of the five winners’ home departments will receive $500 for the student to use for program-sanctioned research or professional development.

The 2025 Nutshell Games presenters

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

• Bhaswati Chowdhury, Food Science and Technology — It’s what’s on the outside that counts...at least for Salmonella

• Matthew Mair, Agricultural and Applied Economics — Machine learning for migration modeling

• James Moloney, Biochemistry — Mosquitoes eat nectar?! Toxic plants and invasive mosquitoes

• Madisen Plunkert, Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education — Scrapple: It’s what’s for breakfast (and so much more)

• Pabina Pokharel, Biochemistry — Locking: A method to enhance the gene editing efficiency of CRISPR

• Madhvi Singh, Food Science and Technology — Fava beans: Tiny pods, big impact

College of Engineering

• Gabriel C. Briggs, Chemical Engineering — Byte for bite: AI in flavor design

• Adwait HogePatil, Aerospace and Ocean Engineering — Wind tunnels: Where airplanes learn to fly!

• Beyza Nur Guler, Engineering Education — Who swiped left on my job application?

• Binita Saha, Macromolecular Science and Engineering — What if bacteria helped fight cancer?

• Monica Shanmugam, Aerospace and Ocean Engineering — A jet engine that can talk back

• Jai Sharma, Electrical and Computer Engineering — When the tower lies: Stopping fake 5G signals

College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences

• Aline de Souza, Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought — Playing harp to transform immigration stories

College of Natural Resources and Environment

• Sithuni M. Jayasekara, Geography — Entangled lives

• Pratirakshya Koirala, Geography — Under the canopy: A shrub story from the Appalachians

• Anu Rai, Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation — Something fishy… but it’s not the fish

College of Science

• Jonathan Gendron, Economics — Evaluating meta-regression techniques: A simulation study on heterogeneity in location and time

• Chaturanga Wengappuliarachchige, Physics — Listening to the coldest whisper in the universe

• Ibukun Olusola, Physics — The nuclear snitch: How to catch quiet blasts

• Gabe Isaac, Neuroscience — Ultrasound: A new tune for treating pain

• Chizoba Obunadike, Chemistry — How a common food supplement makes safe glues and rubbers that fix themselves

• Axel Campos, Physics — Hosting a particle pool party to find out why the universe exists

• Matthew Dupuis, Chemistry — How to treat highly resistant fungal infections when the current drugs stop working: Is there hope?

• Beija K. Gore, Biology — Tiny tails, big pollutants: Tadpoles and microplastics

• Egor Kolesnikov, Physics — Why cells with the same DNA are different

Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine

• Priscilla Atim, Biomedical and Veterinary Sciences — Catching sneaky survivors in a fungal drug escape

• Ama Amoakoma Agyei, Biomedical and Veterinary Sciences — Stress communication: The link between stress and herpes infection in neurons

• Marianne Beaulieu, Biomedical and Veterinary Sciences — Poop to the rescue! Wastewater-based surveillance in rural Appalachia

• Mahfuzul Islam, Biomedical and Veterinary Sciences — Lupus: When self-defense turns into self-destruction

For the full 2025 Nutshell Games story, click here!

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