Please follow us
July 31, 2015
The Sunburst Sensors team poses with XPRIZE executives after the big announcement. Holding the winning sensors
are Mike DeGrandpre (right) and Sunburst CEO Jim Beck.
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
For two years, 24 teams from around the world prepared for and competed in the
XPRIZE for ocean health, attempting to develop pH
sensors for studying ocean acidification. They entered 27
devices for prizes in two categories: affordability and a
ccuracy.
In the end, there were five finalist teams from Britain,
Norway, Japan and the U.S. They competed in deep-sea
testing off Hawaii, lowering the instruments down to 3,000
meters.
Last week, the University of Montana and Missoula
received the best possible news: Sunburst Sensors, a
company launched in 1999 by UM chemistry Professor
Mike DeGrandpre, won the XPRIZE. And Sunburst didn’t just win in one category.
DeGrandpre and the Sunburst Sensors company, led by CEO Jim Beck, received
both $750,000 grand prizes.
The news was featured on CBS and in Forbes magazine, Popular Science, Business
Insider, The Huffington Post and Yahoo Finance, among others.
There only have been five completed XPRIZE contests since 1996. Sunburst and
DeGrandpre now rank among innovators who have accomplished tasks such as
building a car that gets more than 100 miles per gallon and creating a privateindustry reusable space capsule. Thanks to Sunburst and DeGrandpre, our world
now has the technology to more accurately measure carbon dioxide acidification’s
impact on marine life and ocean health – reliably and without enormous cost.
DeGrandpre calls himself an “inland oceanographer” and came to UM almost 20
years ago. He’s a chemist who specializes in the development of autonomous
sensors that examine freshwater and ocean chemistry. His sensors have been used
in waters ranging from pristine Montana lakes to the oceans around Antarctica. In
short, his goal is to better understand how oceans absorb carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere and affect climate change and ocean acidification.
DeGrandpre attributes much of his success to finding a good balance between
research and teaching. He teaches instrumentation classes for chemistry majors in
their junior and senior years. Over the years about 10 UM undergraduates who have
done research in his lab have moved on to jobs at Sunburst.
He also is quick to mention the support he’s received at UM in tech transfer – taking
knowledge, skills and technologies from the University’s realm of research into the
business sector. UM’s technology transfer office, first under Tony Rudbach and now
under Joe Fanguy, was vital, he says. That office encouraged him and helped
remove roadblocks while developing Sunburst Sensors LLC.
Next week, we’ll toast DeGrandpre, our chemistry department and the nine folks who
make up Sunburst during a special campus ceremony. And as we do that, we’ll again
celebrate this inspiring University. UM has proven once again that it stands among
the best in the world for outstanding faculty leadership in the sciences and in the
humanities.
Help us spread the word!
For more information, please see:
https://youtu.be/aXZPkW4L6uA (A video about Sunburst Sensors)
https://youtu.be/7vnpGP03eUU (The full XPRIZE awards ceremony)
http://oceanhealth.xprize.org/ (The Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE page)
Sincerely,
Royce C. Engstrom
President
University of Montana
Keep up with UM news on our website: www.umt.edu.