Ignite Off! Competition
Hosted by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), the annual Ignite Off! competition showcases the talents of interns from participating federal agencies and offices as they share their research through Ignite Talks. Each competitor has five minutes to present their project, using 20 picture-centric slides that automatically advance every 15 seconds. Contestants have access to an ORISE professional development course that teaches the process for developing an Ignite talk.
2023 Ignite Off! Competition
USDA-ARS participant named winner
1st Place: Amanda Fanelli de Souza, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS); “Can We Improve Milk Production by Making Alfalfa More Digestible?” (video, 5:12 minutes)
2nd Place: Madeline Addis, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Energy Storage Summer Internship Program; “The Sustainability of Battery Technologies” (video, 5:16 minutes)
Fan Favorite: Samaria Estrella, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); “Testing Alcohol-Based Hand Sanitizer (ABHS) Messages Among Young Adults, Adult Men, and Spanish Speakers” (video, 5:17 minutes)
The winners were announced during the Ignite Off! Final Event on Aug. 23, 2023. Watch the ceremony below:
Past Ignite Off! Competitions:
First all-ORISE Ignite Off Competition names ORNL intern as its winner
Amish Mishra, an ORISE participant in the National Science Foundation's Mathematical Sciences Graduate Internship (NSF-MSGI) Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), won the 2022 Ignite Off! competition. Read more about the 2022 winner and finalists.
Watch the video recording of the 2022 Ignite Off Final National Viewing Event.
ORISE | Ignite Off National Viewing Event from ORAU on Vimeo.
2021 Ignite Off! Competition Winner
Janet Teng, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
ORISE | Ignite Off! 2021 Winner | Janet Teng from ORAU on Vimeo.
Kristyn Johnson, National Energy Technology Laboratory
ORISE | Ignite Off! 2020 Winner | Kristyn Johnson from ORAU on Vimeo.
Other 2020 Ignite Off! finalists:
- Enakshi Saha | ANL – Bayesian Latent-Variable Modeling of COVID-19 Infection Rate
- Abdullah Kuziez | ANL – Accelerators for Carbon Ion Therapy
- Trevor McQueen | ORNL – Capturing Molecular Actions via Vitrification
- Tanner Stelmach | NETL – Chemical Looping Gasification (CLG)
- Jacob Sumner | ORNL – Protein Shape Reconstruction with Neutron Scattering and Computational Tools
Kaylee Cunningham, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
ORISE | Ignite Off! 2019 Winner | Kaylee Cunningham from ORAU on Vimeo.
Other 2019 Ignite Off! finalists:
- Benjamin Aronson | ANL – The Future of Metal Manufacturing
- Taylor Dennis | ORNL – The Search for Mirror Neutrons
- Carol Lin | ANL – Investigation of the Tribological Effects on the Surface Interaction of Wind Turbine Bearings
- Tayler Sundermann | ORNL – Robotic Laser Titanium Wire Big Area Additive Manufacturing
- Nadia Zaragoza | ANL – Materials Science and Nuclear Fuels