Over the past year, University of Delaware’s community of brilliant entrepreneurs and innovators continues to shine, leaving a trail of impressive achievements in their wake. From securing vital funding through investments and grants to earning top honors in awards and competitions, UD students, faculty, and alumni consistently push the boundaries of excellence. Their hard work and ingenuity have garnered well-deserved recognition from notable figures and publications alike. Below, we celebrate their remarkable accomplishments, categorized by the incredible contributions of the students, alumni, faculty & staff, and the Horn National Advisory Board.
UD Community
Versogen, founded by Yushan Yan, announced that it reached a membrane production capacity of 1 gigawatt per year, a milestone for the venture.
Nitro Biosciences cofounder Aditya Kunjapur published a story in Science magazine, “Planting a flag on antigens.”
Lauren Roberts, founder of OBEnaturelle, was featured in Delaware Business Times.
Erha Andini, founder of Pakai Laboratories, was quoted in a Washington Post article titled “Why scientists think they may finally have found a way to recycle clothes.”
McKinley Lynn’s summer internship with Edge Capital Lending, LLC has become a part-time job as a Junior Marketing Specialist.
Erha Andini (Pakai Laboratories), Annabelle Brame (Brame - formerly The convertible Dress), and Kylie Short (AIGONE) were finalists at the fourth annual Radcliffe Eco Entrepreneurship Fellows (REEF) Pitch Day.
Saumya Agrawal, Alex Berman, and Norman Mthethwa received Pfeil Family VentureOn awards.
The undergraduate entrepreneurship awards recognize innovative and entrepreneurial UD students. The 2024 recipients were Emilie Delay, Olivia Jin, McKinley Lynn, Samantha McGhee, Norman Mthethwa, Sierra RyanWallick, Logan Snapp, Jenna Tomasch, Ethan David Wales, Hunter Wills, and Jacob Zaidman.
Norman Mthethwa (Dropsea), Shokhin Sharipov (SafeFrames), and Anirudh Changkakoti and Jaken Zaidman (Beattalks) were the winners of the Spring 2024 Pitch Party.
Evyn Appel was a 2024 Finalist for the Truman Scholarship.
Alumni
ChaCha Hudson was recognized as Innovator of the Week by INNOVATION insights.
Connor Swalm and Josh Simmons, cofounders of Phin Security, raised $5.70MM in seed funding.
Annabelle Brame, founder of BRAME, was featured on the Tamron Hall show.
Founder of Alchemize Fightwear Maya Nazareth was featured in Philadelphia Magazine and UDaily, University of Delaware’s news service. She was also awarded a fellowship with the Tory Burch Foundation.
Strados Labs, founded by Nick Delmanico, was named a Top Digital Health and A.I. Company to Watch in 2024 by The Medical Futurist.
Lynn Roberts accepted a program manager position with the Pete du Pont Freedom Foundation.
Nick Martin and Amy Zitelman were featured on the Founding Philly podcast. Nick, cofounder of Carbon Reform, discussed renewable energy technology (episode 9). Amy, cofounder of Soom Foods, spoke about her startup experience (episode 21).
Gabrielle Holiday won second place at the HBCU/MI Entrepreneur Innovation Competition.
Adam Stager, founder of TRiC Robotics, was accepted to the Plug and Play Agtech accelerator program.
Mathew Kuhn, founder of Taurus Vascular, won $30,000 at the Texas A&M New Ventures Competition. The company also raised $1.5MM in seed funding.
Jo Norris and Nick Martin, cofounders of Carbon Reform, were named to the Philadelphia Business Journal’s list of 40 under 40. They also received an investment from the Cisco Systems Foundation and won the Philadelphia Regional Startup World Cup Pitch Competition.
Nate Matherson and Matt Lenhard publicly launched Positional.
John-Carlos Saponara accepted a position as Director, Product & Innovation, at maslansky+partners.
Stemmer, founded by Sam Goetz, processed more than 10,000 songs in its first 6 months after launching last October.
Garrison Davis, founder of Little Bob Technologies, was accepted to the 2024 Philadelphia Founders Institute Cohort.
OmniPotential, founded by Cora Castle, received an EDGE grant for STEM-based companies.
John Erby, founder of Roivios, attended the Bullpen.
WilmInvest, founded by Joel Amin and Bryce Fender, received a grant from The Affordable Housing Program.
Faculty & Staff
Tomé Salgueiro recently published “Reconstructing Professional Role Identities: (Un)learning and Hybridization in a Business School Program”, in the Academy of Management Learning and Education Journal.
Dan Lee was awarded a $5000 Advancing Research Translation through Social Capital grant from the NSF i-Corps Hub Northeast Region for his study, Efficacy of Technology Transfer Offices: A Work History Approach.
Garry Johnson, III, founder of Bison Venture Partners, wrote an article, “How I used AI to win $35K in startup funding,” on Technical.ly Delaware. Garry also published his first book, “The Ghetto VC.”
Duygu Phillips published a few articles, “From modesty to market: shareholder reactions to humility rhetoric in family and nonfamily firms under media scrutiny” (Small Business Economics Journal), "Signaling the family firm brand in recruitment materials: The role of category-based cognitive processing on applicant attraction" (Journal of Business Research), From liability to asset: A receiver’s perspective on eponymy signals and market value (Journal of Small Business Management). Duygu Phillips presented her study on family firms’ exit strategies at the 18th Theories of Family Enterprise Conference at Rowan University.
Johann Ducharme was awarded a $50,000 grant from The Educating Character Initiative (ECI), a part of the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University, for the project “Institutional Consensus of Character Education.”
Duygu Phillips, Stephanie Raible, and Johann Ducharme each presented at the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship conference in Birmingham, Alabama.
Laura Gasiorowski and Stephanie Raible each presented their research at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Colloquium on Transitional Entrepreneurship, hosted by Old Dominion University, in Norfolk, Virginia.
Duygu Phillips and Stephanie Raible, assistant professors of entrepreneurship, each presented papers at the premier international women's entrepreneurship research conference, the Diana International Research Conference (DIRC), which was held in Stockholm, Sweden.
Stephanie Raible was elected to the board of directors for the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE). She published a case study, “Blooming social impact: Growing Appalachian Botanical Company’s resource partnerships in a rural ecosystem” about social entrepreneurship. Stephanie also received a 2025 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award.
At the Academy of Management Annual Conference, Laura Gasiorowski presented "Dynamics in Entrepreneurial Pitch Q&A: Examining Gender, Communication, and Trust in Investment."
UD Athletics recognized Vince DiFelice, Tomé Salgueiro and Johann Ducharme as MVPs (Most Valuable Professor) in the spring and fall. Student athletes nominate professors that have impacted them.
National Advisory Board
Erica Nemser’s Compact Membrane Solutions was Technical.ly Delaware’s 2023 Tech Company of the Year.
Delaware Business Times recognized Jeff Lang as a DE222 honoree.
About Horn Entrepreneurship
Horn Entrepreneurship serves as the creative engine for entrepreneurship education and advancement at the University of Delaware. Currently ranked among the best entrepreneurship programs in the US, Horn Entrepreneurship was built and is actively supported by successful entrepreneurs, empowering aspiring innovators as they pursue new ideas for a better world.
Editor's note: The last article about awards and recognition was published on December 12, 2023. We won't wait as long for the next one!