First USF team of inventors advances to National Inventors Hall of Fame’s Collegiate Inventors Competition

By Lauren Parker, Florida Inventors Hall of Fame - University of South Florida

A team from the University of South Florida's Department of Medical Engineering, a joint program shared between the USF College of Engineering and USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, has developed a new type of EEG electrode designed to improve how electrical activity in the brain is measured, with the potential to significantly improve patient comfort, signal quality and the efficiency of neurological monitoring. The pioneering technology, called NeuTrode, was developed by Bridget Clift, Cristina Ramirez Vargas and Addison Whitehead, all of whom graduated in May 2026 with undergraduate degrees in biomedical engineering. The team has been selected as a finalist for the prestigious National Inventors Hall of Fame Collegiate Inventors Competition, taking place in Washington, D.C., October 13-15, 2026. Team NeuTrode will compete in the graduate category alongside five other teams selected from universities across the United States.

senior capstone project turns into medical breakthrough

The three members of Team NeuTrode initially set out to address challenges associated with electrodes used in electroencephalography, or EEG, including conductivity, patient comfort and the ability to capture clear brain signals. Begun as part of their senior capstone project, the project progressed through multiple rounds of prototyping and testing, until it became clear that this could be a breakthrough in the EEG field. The team went on to receive funding through the Florida High Tech Corridor's Early-Stage Innovation Fund to support further product development.

However, NeuTrode isn't just the result of long and intensive hours of iteration, it is also the product of a friendship that has shaped the way the three have grown together as engineers and inventors. Clift, Ramirez Vargas and Whitehead were already close friends when they worked together during their junior-year capstone experience. When they later collaborated on their senior capstone project, Whitehead said they were determined to prove that friendship could be one of the team's strengths.

"Thanks to our professors, they put us together, and we were dedicated to showing that the power of friendship does work," Whitehead said.

developing a dry electrode without reducing the quality of recorded brain signals

NeuTrode was originally developed to address a challenge encountered by Nathan Schilaty, an associate professor with joint appointments in the USF Health Department of Neurosurgery, Brain and Spine and the Department of Medical Engineering. Schilaty and his research team focus on developing innovative programs to enhance chiropractic care, prevent injuries, and improve rehabilitation techniques, and uses electrophysiology techniques for motor control analysis. Doctoral candidate Katherine "Katie" Walters, who regularly collected EEG data in Schilaty's lab, helped bring the problem to the students after experiencing firsthand the limitations of existing electrodes. Maintaining conductivity could require repeatedly applying saline, while existing dry electrodes came with their own trade-offs in signal quality. Walters and Schilaty challenged the three students to explore whether they could develop a dry electrode without sacrificing the quality of the brain signals being recorded.

Months of experimentation, prototyping and redesign followed before the project began producing results that suggested NeuTrode could become something much bigger than a class assignment.

"Suddenly it was like, 'Oh wow, this is something completely new and different,'" Schilaty said. "If what we are currently seeing from the data holds true, then this could be revolutionary in terms of an electrode."

Throughout that process, Walters said the students' friendship became one of the team's greatest strengths. "They really are the dream team," Walters said. "When something needed to get done, there was never a question of it getting done. They were all going to work together to get it done."

For the three inventors, however, the larger goal is not simply to create a better electrode. They want to improve the patients' experience of undergoing an EEG.

Traditional EEG systems can require electrodes to remain wet with saline or gel to maintain conductivity, creating a process that can be time-consuming, messy and uncomfortable for patients. NeuTrode was designed to maintain strong conductivity while remaining dry, with the potential to make neurological monitoring easier for both clinicians administering the test and patients undergoing it. The team also sees potential applications in situations where brain activity must be measured quickly, including emergency medicine and military environments.

Reaching that point required the students to solve engineering challenges beyond the electrode itself. When commercial
equipment needed to evaluate their design proved too expensive for the capstone budget, the team created its own testing system using materials available in USF laboratories and equipment borrowed from faculty. Through continued refinement, they reduced the time required to test an individual electrode from approximately 10 minutes to two.

Those results helped move NeuTrode beyond the classroom. After early versions of the electrode produced promising data in the lab, Schilaty contacted USF's Technology Transfer Office to begin the invention disclosure process. The university later helped the team file a provisional patent application, and the students received a provisional patent number.

Funding through the Florida High Tech Corridor's Early-Stage Innovation Fund has allowed the team to continue that work, including acquiring more industry-standard testing equipment to further validate the technology. The students are also working with USF mechanical engineering students and faculty on manufacturing approaches that could help move NeuTrode from benchtop production toward a scalable process.

Moving NeuTrode beyond research lab into existing EEG systems

For Ramirez Vargas, the long-term vision is to see NeuTrode move beyond the research lab and become technology that can be integrated into existing EEG systems.

"Seeing it as an industry standard is definitely a goal of ours," Ramirez Vargas said. "We hope it can be an easy, adaptable solution that works within existing systems."

Next month, Clift, Ramirez Vargas and Whitehead will take that vision to the national stage in the Washington, D.C. area as finalists in the National Inventors Hall of Fame's Collegiate Inventors Competition. Their selection marks a milestone for the university: NeuTrode is the first USF team to advance to finalist status in the competition. The opportunity will place the three inventors alongside student teams from universities across the country and give them a national platform to present the technology they first began developing inside a USF classroom.

For Clift, seeing NeuTrode reach that stage is also an opportunity to highlight the university and biomedical engineering program that helped make it possible.

"Being able to say, 'We did this while we were at USF, have you heard of the program?' It is amazing," Clift said. "Being able to say, 'Oh yeah, we invented that,' if someone is using it in a hospital to help people, that would be the cherry on top."