Three UMass Amherst faculty members — Lili He, Govindarajan Srimathveeravalli, and VP Nguyen — have been named Senior Members of the National Academy of Inventors’ 2026 class, an honor recognizing researchers whose patented innovations show strong societal impact and commercial potential. Each honoree has received Translational Seed Award support and launched at least one startup, reflecting their commitment to moving scientific discoveries into real-world solutions.
He, professor and food science department head, serendipitously stumbled upon her first of seven patents when one of her students accidentally discovered that the chemical coating He’s lab was working on had an unexpected property. He had been awarded a grant from the USDA to help develop a method and technology for quickly and accurately quantifying how many bacteria are in food—one of the core problems in food science.
Srimathveeravalli, associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering in the Riccio College of Engineering and director of the Center for Personalized Health Monitoring in the Institute for Applied Life Sciences, holds several patents for medical devices for minimally invasive therapy and image-guided treatments.
VP Nguyen, assistant professor in the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences studies wireless and sensing systems. “We are able to solve a very diverse set of problems,” he says. “When we see problems, we are able to go deep into what is missing and then try to correlate it with our sensor and system expertise.”