The Research & Development Council of New Jersey (R&D Council) has officially announced the honorees for the 2026 Edison Patent Awards, recognizing the Garden State’s most prestigious contributions to invention, technology, and economic growth.
Under this year’s theme, “Revolution Through Innovation,” the awards highlight 15 breakthrough patents from 13 leading organizations, alongside five distinguished individual honors recognizing eight prominent leaders who continue to advance New Jersey’s innovation ecosystem.
The honorees will be officially celebrated during the 47th Annual Edison Patent Awards Ceremony and Reception on Nov. 19 at Bell Works in Holmdel.
Featured individual awardees
- Science & Technology Medal: Mike Intrator, Brian Venturo, Brannin McBee, and Peter Salanki (co-founders of CoreWeave) — Recognized for building CoreWeave from its New Jersey roots into the world’s leading AI Cloud.
- Visionary Award: Bob Carrigan (chief executive officer of Audible) — Honored for transformational leadership in aligning industry, academia, and government to build a research-driven economy and foster inclusive growth in Newark.
- Educator of the Year: Dr. Lamont Repollet (president of Kean University) — Acknowledged for advancing science, technology, and workforce education, culminating in Kean’s recent designation as a premier research university.
- Catalyst Award: Atam Dhawan, Ph.D. (chief strategic innovation officer and senior vice provost for research at New Jersey Institute of Technology) — Recognized for forging vital connections across universities, government, and industry.
- Emerging Tech Award: Kathryn Carpenter (founder & CEO of Cecilia Materials) — Honored for breakthrough technology that transforms industrial plastic waste into high-value advanced carbons.
2026 Edison Patent Award honorees by category
The 2026 awards honor 15 patented technologies developed across a wide range of industries, with at least part of their scientific work completed in New Jersey:
- 13 Mari Ltd. (Environmental): Method, system and apparatus for reducing fluid drag (U.S. Patent No. 11,946,497 B2) — Inventors: Krassimir Fotev, Rumen Kishev, and Grigor Plamenov Nikolov.
- 911inform (Public Safety): Geospatial physical location for emergency services calls using voice over internet protocol or multi-line telephone system (U.S. Patent No. 12,323,895 B2) — Inventor: Ivo Allen.
- Acustrip Company, Inc. (Transportation): Method and kit for detecting diesel exhaust fluid in fuel (U.S. Patent No. 12,540,930 B2) — Inventors: Ronald Schornstein and Samuel D’Arcangelis.
- Chiral Photonics, Inc. (Emerging Technology): Configurable pitch reducing optical fiber array (U.S. Patent No. 8,712,199 B2) — Inventors: Victor Il’ich Kopp, Jonathan Singer, Daniel Neugroschl, Jongchul Park, and Mitchell S. Wlodawski.
- Innerstill (Wellness): Wellness device using interference frequencies (U.S. Patent No. 11,491,330 B2) — Inventors: Yakov Katsnelson, Vladimir Chuev, and Hank Beckhoff.
- Merck & Co., Inc. (Pharmaceutical Process): Enzymatic synthesis of 4′-ethynyl nucleoside analogs (U.S. Patent No. 12,037,623 B2) — Inventors: Mark A. Huffman, Anna Fryszkowska, Joshua N. Kolev, Paul N. Devine, Kevin R. Campos, Matthew Truppo, and Christopher C. Nawrat.
- NEC Laboratories America, Inc. (Enabling Technologies): Bidirectional optical communication and sensing WDM architecture using same fiber transmission band (U.S. Patent No. 10,763,964 B2) — Inventors: Yue-Kai Huang, Ezra Ip, Philip Nan Ji, and Ming-Fang Huang.
- Nokia Bell Labs (Telecommunications): Method and apparatus for signal compression and decompression (U.S. Patent No. 8,923,386 B2) — Inventors: Dragan M. Samardzija, John Pastalan, William M. MacDonald, and Reinaldo A. Valenzuela.
- Princeton University (Biotechnology): Split inteins with exceptional splicing activity (U.S. Patent No. 11,142,550 B2) — Inventors: Tom W. Muir, Adam J. Stevens, and Neel H. Shah.
- Princeton University (Climate): System and method for environment-dependent probabilistic tropical cyclone modeling (U.S. Patent No. 12,601,855 B2) — Inventors: Ning Lin and Renzhi Jing.
- Rowan University (Advanced Manufacturing): System and method for electrospun fiber straining and collecting (U.S. Patent No. 11,015,267 B2) — Inventor: Vince Beachley.
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (Industrial Processes): Methods of increasing toughness of immiscible polymer blends (U.S. Patent No. 8,497,324 B2) — Inventors: Thomas J. Nosker, Jennifer K. Lynch, Richard Lehman, James D. Idol, Richard W. Renfree, and Maryann Renfree.
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (Aquaculture): Molluscan shellfish produced by controlled crossbreeding (U.S. Patent No. 11,266,131 B2) — Inventor: Ximing Guo.
- Siemens (Information Technology): Explicit rule-based control of complex dynamical systems (EP4370980) — Inventors: Dirk Hartmann, Amit Pandey, Suat Gumussoy, and Ulrich Muenz.
- Siemens Healthineers (Medical Technology): Fully automated assessment of coronary vulnerable plaque in coronary CT images using radiomic features (U.S. Patent No. 12,327,349 B2) — Inventors: Pranjal Vaidya, Mehmet Akif Gulsun, and Puneet Sharma.
