UTC’s Fall 2026 Research Pitch Competition reveals two student researchers to watch
Their research focuses line up with issues that matter in Tennessee today. One is tackling the cooling demands of data centers. The other is building assistive technology in a state with a strong health care ecosystem.
Last week, undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) competed in the Fall 2026 Research Pitch Competition for scholarship prizes from $250 to $750 and a People’s Choice Award.
The competition was sponsored by the UTC Graduate School and the Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavor (URaCE).
Two student researchers really stood out
Chemical engineering graduate student Katelyn Hamilton won the graduate three-minute pitch competition with “Pulling Water From Thin Air,” her research on capturing water molecules from the air to help cool data centers.
I feel like research is such an underground thing. Getting the opportunity to explain that to people who have no idea what you’re doing in a way that they can understand is very important because all the research that we do benefits society and the world in one way or another. For people on the outside looking in, I think it benefits both the researcher and the audience.
Junior mechatronics major Autumn Reagan also wowed the crowd as the event’s only double winner. She took first place in the undergraduate two-minute pitch competition and won the undergraduate People’s Choice Award for a variable-stiffness wrist brace. People with carpal tunnel syndrome could stiffen it with the press of a button for support, then release it to keep working.
The main problem with carpal tunnel syndrome is that the primary form of treatment is rigid wrist braces. But the people who need them most are the people who can’t wear a wrist brace throughout the day. I was going to design a variable-stiffness wrist brace that they could press a button to provide support. They could press the button again and work as usual. They’d get a bunch of extra hours of support that they wouldn’t otherwise have.
Kudos to UTC for putting student researchers on stage and backing their ideas with scholarship dollars! That kind of early support and exposure just might help the next generation be inspired to turn these research ideas into a business.
“This has been a very good practice for me to actually get comfortable with condensing ideas and being able to share those ideas with other people,” Reagan reflected.
Video Credit: UTC.
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