CSE professor named 2025 Faculty Innovator of the Year

Eleven projects from CSE students and faculty were featured at the 2025 Founder’s Day Event

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (06/13/2025)— Professor Jian-Ping Wang, who has founded four start-up companies while at the University of Minnesota, was honored with the “Faculty Innovator of the Year” award at the 2025 University of Minnesota Founder’s Day.

Wang, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor who also holds the Robert F. Hartmann Chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is a world-renowned researcher in novel magnetic materials and spintronic devices for information storage, memory and computing, and biomedical sensing.

He has co-founded four startup companies—Niron Magnetics Inc., Zepto Life Technology LLC, Magtection, and Universal Magnetic Systems LLC. Wang’s invention of the rare-earth-free and environment-friendly iron nitride permanent magnet was named one of Time Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2023 and led to Minnesota-based startup company Niron Magnetics, which plans to open a manufacturing facility in Sartell, Minn. Niron’s magnets offer a sustainable solution to the increasing demand for permanent magnets while also providing domestic supply chain security.

Wang’s research consists of many firsts in the field. Wang’s pioneering experimental demonstration on the exchange coupled composite (ECC) media has been used in hard disk drive (HDD) technology since 2008.

Wang is the inventor of novel magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) structures and spin-orbit torque (SOT) materials and devices, both of which have been deployed and are being actively explored for magnetic memory and spintronic computing applications. In addition, he is the inventor of Computational Random Access Memory (CRAM) for computing using memory cells, which has been validated through benchmarking efforts to address energy-efficient memory-centric computing for artificial intelligent (AI) applications.

Other CSE Founders Day Award-winners

Omni Agrobot developed by robotics master’s students Abhishek Chaudhari and David Aviles Hinostroza, and Swapnil Puranik won the Best Overall Award at the event. 

Vivarent by computer science Ph.D. student Lalitaditya Divakarla and computer science master’s student Nicole Vu won the Audience Favorite Award. 

Other College of Science and Engineering student and faculty projects that were featured at the event included:

• Atmospherix developed by computer science master’s student Aleksei Rozanov.
• Counselling Chatbot ("Academic Chatbot") developed by computer science student Sultan Koroso and Carlson School of Management student Veeraj Chimanpure.
• Evelyn (SmartSteer) developed by computer science student Ritesh Prabhu, aerospace engineering student Isai Alvarez, and computer science/mathematics student Micheal Zewdie.
• Neural Interface developed by biomedical engineering students Nikhil Iyer, Khidhr Kotaria and Sergey Barabanoff, computer engineering student Kevin Vo, computer engineering student Levi Krogh, electrical engineering students Alex Wan and Ethan Chung, and Carlson School of Management student Kevin Song.
• Next Generation Intraosseous Needle developed by biomedical engineering students Dilshan Rajan and Shaliny Jadhav and computer science student Anuk Dias.
• Pediatric Pulmonary Flow developed by Dr. Juan Carlos Samayoa and Dr. Gurumurthy Hiremath from the University of Minnesota Medical School and Paul Rothweiller (B.S. Chem ‘84) Academy Director at the Bakken Medical Devices Center.
• Sick-Mine-Guard developed by robotics master’s students Sujeendra Ramesh and Abhishek Chaudhari.
• ThoughtX developed by computer science students Ashley Olson and Ilana Andrev.
• UniHustle ("Campus Concierge") developed by computer science students Aarussh Vaid, Srinivas Preetham Addepalli, Justin Mehes, and Aarush Bezalwar.

The 13th annual Founder’s Day was co-hosted by the Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship in the Carlson School of Management and the University of Minnesota Libraries.