UW-Madison formally congratulated Chris Nguyen, a fourth-year biomedical engineering major, Monday morning at Engineering Hall for winning the grand prize in General Electric's “Unimpossible Missions: The University Edition” competition.
The challenge asked participants to debunk common idioms such as “A snowball’s chance in hell,” or, for Nguyen, “You can’t unring a bell.” Noise cancellation technology and research on sound waves were used to help Nguyen support his theory.
“I found the premise of the proposal on accident,” Nguyen said. “I was looking for headphones as a present to myself after finals, and I thought, ‘Hey, I could apply this.’”
Chancellor Rebecca Blank joined Dean of the College of Engineering Ian Robertson, as well as GE president and CEO of Healthcare Molecular Imaging and Computed Tomography Mike Barber to announce Nguyen and his awards. These included a trophy that gave title to his accomplishments and a scholarship from GE for $100,000. He also accepted a 10-week paid internship at the GE Global Research Center in Niskayuna, N.Y., next summer.
“Unimpossible Missions” was offered to nearly 400 universities in 35 countries, with 575 entries in total. Nguyen expressed his interest in the miniaturized electronics department for his time at the Global Research Center in New York during a visit in August, but said he was open to working on any project during his internship at the GRC next summer.
“I’m a biomedical engineer and I want to do health care research,” Nguyen said. “But there is no such thing as strictly health care research. The research I’ll be doing will be applied to many other fields and I think that is really cool.”
Nguyen’s noise cancellation technology started in the aviation department at GE, moved to the audio industry with MR machines, then moved again to aviation to help reduce noise in jet engines.
When asked what his biggest advice is for students interested in GE’s next challenge, or working towards ambitious goals in general, Nguyen encouraged his audience to push boundaries.
“I put myself out there and I encourage other people to do it because it’s not that hard once you apply yourself, and push yourself, to go beyond what you’re comfortable with,” Nguyen said.
