Thirteen Washington State University Tri-Cities undergraduate students presented six different projects at the Showcase for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities (SURCA) 2025 at WSU Pullman and two groups returned home with top awards. In total, 54 students were the recipients of 44 awards totaling $10,200, announced the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR), host of the system-wide March 24 event.

“The posters I judged… were truly outstanding,” said Neil Corrigan, visiting teaching professor in cybersecurity at WSU Tri-Cities, who served as both a faculty mentor and a judge for the category of Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, and Information Sciences. “The students presenting their projects were enthusiastic about their research and did a wonderful job of explaining their results to me. The research projects I observed were all of high quality, and it was evident that the participating undergraduate students had put in a great deal of time and effort to achieve a successful outcome.”

Awards are available at four levels, with crimson being the highest, gray the second-highest, early career for first-year students and sophomores, and novice for new researchers.

In the Engineering and Physical Sciences category, the project team of Dylan DuBois-Kilroy, Sarah Ellis, Kristopher Hahn, Joe Hawkins and John Lindquist won the Crimson Award for their project “Design of a Cost Effective Vectored Remote Operated Vehicle for Water Sampling”, advised by engineering professor Changki Mo.

In the Computer Science, Math and Statistics category Diego Rangel Monroy won the crimson award for his project “Formally Correct Radial Averaging for Cartesian-Polar Mesh Mapping”, advised by mathematics professor Ryan Learn.

“Receiving recognition for the result of years of work was very encouraging,” said Monroy. “I felt reinspired to continue progressing towards my goals at a time when my ‘academic batteries’ were starting to run low.”

Held since 2012, SURCA is the only WSU-wide venue for undergraduates in every major and year in college to share their research. The number of 2025 accepted abstracts from presenters and the number of volunteer judges set new records at 273 and 239, respectively.

Abstracts and information about each SURCA presenter are available online, and a video of the awards ceremony is on YouTube.