Office for Research Hosts the 2025 Rutgers Innovation Awards Ceremony

The Office for Research celebrated and honored the 2025 Rutgers Innovation Awards recipients with peers, industry executives, and Rutgers University leadership.

In its second year, the Rutgers Innovation Awards (RIA) recognized researchers who have demonstrated excellence by developing a breakthrough idea, process, or technology that has the potential to benefit society and create economic value.

Rutgers executive vice president for academic affairs and chief academic officer Keena Arbuthnot, PhD, and senior vice president for research Michael E. Zwick, PhD, presented awards to the 2025 winners, following introductory remarks that set the tone for the ceremony. 

The event also recognized current Rutgers inventors who were issued U.S. patents during the fiscal year 2025 and innovators with non-patent intellectual property that did not receive the award in prior fiscal years and are either licensed with received revenue or licensed multiple times with or without revenue, as well as Office for Research Technology Transfer Trainees who completed their year-long appointments.

“The Rutgers Innovation Awards highlight the importance and value of teamwork in research," said Zwick. “Societal challenges are becoming more complex, and the requirements for solving them constantly evolve for faculty, students, staff, and industry. We are all in this together, and we are a team with one goal: to leave a better world for our children and future Americans so they can pursue opportunities and make a life as rich and rewarding as the one we are privileged to live."

“The innovations being recognized through these awards are forward-thinking and meaningful, spanning a remarkable breadth of disciplines, each pushing the boundaries of knowledge, creativity, and discovery,” said Arbuthnot. "Our faculty’s work raises the academic profile of Rutgers and addresses some of the most pressing challenges our society faces, and they do so with rigor and measurable impact." 

“Thanks to the great innovators we have here at Rutgers, the Office for Research Technology Transfer and New Ventures units had a record year in 2025, with 215 invention disclosures and 10 startups launched,” said Deborah Perez Fernandez, PhD, MBA, executive director of Technology Transfer, the unit within the Office for Research that supports researchers throughout the tech transfer process. “We are honored to host this banquet to celebrate Rutgers’ research and innovation, and we cannot wait to see what amazing discoveries and technologies will be developed by our incredible researchers."

“We are proud to highlight these 10 amazing researchers and research teams and their cutting-edge innovations,” said Vince Smeraglia, JD, executive director of New Ventures, which helps researchers form and grow startups based on technologies developed at Rutgers. “Thank you to everyone who helped make this event happen, including our external experts for their guidance and work on the challenging task of selecting just 10 winners, the companies and organizations that sponsored the event, and, of course, the organizing committee, who have worked diligently to make this the best event possible."

Nominated by their peers or themselves and reviewed by teams of external experts in each award field, the 10 winners were scored based on novelty, competitive advantage, impact, utility, socio-economic value of the innovation, and the significance of the problem solved.

Each Innovation Award team member received a certificate, while patent recipients and non-patent intellectual property honorees were presented with plaques to honor their achievements, and the FY24 Tech Transfer Trainees received certificates.

For more information on the Rutgers Innovation Awards, click here