Accelerator Grant Archives - Office of Research Development

UMaine Alert

Posted: April 19, 2024 - 1:32 PM

At approximately 9:24 a.m. on Friday, April 19, a University of Maine graduate student was struck by a university vehicle on Long Road at the University of Maine campus in Orono. The student reports that they are at a local hospital with minor injuries.

Emergency services, including the Orono Fire Department, University Volunteer Ambulance Corps, University of Maine Police Department, Orono Police Department and Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene.

The university vehicle involved in the incident was a Chevrolet Express van. It was being operated by a university employee.

Counseling services and support are available for students, faculty or staff who may have been affected. The Counseling Center can be reached at 207-581-1392 and the Dean of Students Office can be reached at 207-581-1406.

The scene has been cleared and Long Road is now accessible. An investigation is being conducted by the University of Maine Police Department with assistance from the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office Crash Reconstruction Unit. Any witnesses to the incident are encouraged to contact Lt. Noel Santiago at noel.santiago@maine.edu.

Accelerator Grant

New Gear for New Growers: Commercializing a Low-cost Oyster Sorter for Small-Scale and Diversified Business Enterprises

PI: Josh Stoll, UM School of Marine Sciences Aquaculture represents a major economic opportunity for coastal communities in the United States and has the potential to be a way for fishermen to diversify their employment. Small-scale aquaculture businesses are the fastest growing subset of farms in Maine. In 2017 the Maine Department of Marine Resources […]

Commercialization of Molded Wood Flour-Cellulose Nanomaterial Products

PI: Mehdi Tajvidi, UM School of Forest Resources We propose commercialization of molded products that can be fabricated from wood flour and lignocellulosic nanomaterials, originated from Maine’s abundant fiber resource. The main advantage of the proposed product, compared with its plastic counterparts, is biodegradability and environmentally-benign end-of-life disposal. Moreover, both major components are made from […]

Nanocellulose based Composites for Orthopedic Fixation Devices

PI: Mike Mason, UM Chemical and Biological Engineering The targeted market for the proposed technology is that of orthopedic fixation devices, or devices used to hold bones together after surgery or trauma. Currently, this market is valued at ~$40.2 billion and predicted to grow to $61 billion by 2021. Biomaterials within this field currently possess […]

Customer Discovery and Market Validation of Midlina – A multimodal software solution that will provide blind and visually-impaired (BVI) people with access to graphical information

PI: Nicholas Giudice, UM School of Computing and Information Science Gaining access to graphical information (such as maps, graphs, and diagrams) is one of the biggest challenges for blind and visually-impaired (BVI) people. To address this major unmet and immediate need in the field of blindness accessibility, we have invented an innovative multimodal software solution […]

Design of Floating Wind Turbine Concrete Hull

PI: Anthony Viselli (Advanced Structures and Composites Center, UMaine) Abstract: The RRF funding will be used to complete final design engineering efforts of two VolturnUS floating concrete hulls that support 6MW offshore wind turbines. Offshore wind is Maine’s largest untapped renewable resource with 156 GW of capacity within 50 miles of shore. Floating turbine technology […]

Early Diagnosis and Treatment of Peripheral Neuropathy

PI: Townsend, Kristy Abstract: We propose the creation and commercialization of a transdermal, microelectrode array for measuring nerve conduction of free nerve endings in the skin during the progression to diabetic neuropathy, in order to provide earlier and non-invasive detection and diagnosis; as well creation of an accompanying microneedle device for subdermal drug delivery using […]

Investing in Maine’s future forest with high-value, low-cost geoinformatics

PI: Simons-Legaard, Erin Abstract: The forest products industry contributes nearly $8.5 billion annually to Maine’s economy, and by some estimates this contribution could more than double with value-added processing, biodiversity offsets, forest carbon trading, and other ecosystem service credits. Realization of this potential will require adaptation of forest management strategies. Forest managers in Maine have […]

Patterned Release Paper Microfluidics as a Platform Technology in Biomedical Applications: Customer Discovery

PI: Howell, Caitlin Abstract: The purpose of this project is to identify and contact potential customers to explore and identify the most promising pathway(s) to the integration of release-paper microfluidic platforms into current and future point-of-care (POC) medical diagnostic devices. An ongoing industry-university collaboration between the Release Paper Group at Sappi North America and the […]

Bee Hive Activity Monitoring System: Phase 2

PI: Emanetoglu, Nuri Abstract: A Doppler radar based bee activity monitor has been developed, which is placed closed to the hive entrance, without disturbing the bees. Based on a 10.5 GHz motion detector, the unit measures the total energy in the return signal due to Doppler signals from flying bees and records it. The activity […]

RRF Phase II Acceleration of beverage spoilage yeast test to market

Principal Investigator: Connell, Laurie Partners: Maine Technology Institute Abstract: Our handheld, point-of-use (POU) instrument will provide the only near-instantaneous solution to detect certain environmental microbes from complex matrices with minimal sample preparation. The system is based on prior-art developed at UMaine funded through Federal, State, and Private sources. The initial target application is the detection […]