Northwestern Engineering

The US is racing to produce more lithium for EVs and clean energy. But there’s a catch: water.

Professor Jennifer Dunn found most proposed lithium mining sites are in already dry regions, where water is limited and competition is high. Those shortages could worsen as climate change reshapes supply.

Northwestern Chemical & Biological Engineering Department

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Professor Shana Kelley helped lead the release of a new AI “world model” of protein biology at Biohub.

The system learns the rules that govern how proteins form, interact, and function — then uses that knowledge to predict structures and design new molecules.

Instead of testing ideas one experiment at a time, researchers can run those experiments digitally, speeding work on therapies and diagnostics.

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Cars, smart devices, data centers, and agriculture all rely on minerals. And as demand grows, researchers are looking for better ways to find and produce them.

At Northwestern Engineering, that work includes everything from improving battery materials to exploring how minerals could be recovered from unexpected sources like lakes and waste streams.

The goal: expand supply while addressing the environmental and public-health concerns that often come with mining.

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Northwestern Engineering students are turning big ideas into real-world impact—and winning big.

Trevor Abbott and Quinn McGinley, both mechanical engineering students, took home the VentureCat 2026 Grand Prize — $100,000 for their startup HaptE, a computer vision system that catches ex*****on errors and optimizes warehouse operations in real time.

Abbott and McGinley were far from the only McCormick School of Engineering students honored. Read on to find out who else was recognized.

https://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/articles/2026/05/mccormick-student-entrepreneurs-win-venturecat-grand-prize/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social-post&utm_campaign=mcc-news-promotion&utm_content=___