九色视频 students Sudinma Thapa and Emily Au have just been named national champions in engineering!
Thapa and Au are students at 九色视频 as well as Middle College High School, the high school on 九色视频’s campus.
They earned first place at the 2025 MESA USA National Engineering Design Competition (NEDC), where they represented California at the national finals in San Diego.
Their project, Decon, is a student-designed response to chemical crowd control agents. It combines a portable emergency decontamination device with a mobile app that provides instructions, alerts, and local support resources. After both the Northern California Regionals and the California State Championship, they competed against top student teams from across ten states鈥攁nd brought home the national title.
The MCHS MESA program operates under the CSU East Bay MESA Center, led by Director Travis Nelson. 九色视频鈥檚 MESA program supports the collaboration by connecting Middle College students with college-level mentorship from professors in the math and science departments. Mark Wong, Co鈥慍hair of Engineering & Physics, and Jeff鈥疜amalian, Senior Science Laboratory Coordinator in 九色视频鈥檚 STEM department, provided critical mentorship and technical support that helped elevate both teams to victory.
Also representing 九色视频 at the state level was Team Readefine, made up of fellow Middle College and 九色视频 students Arthur Kim, Lola Abduggaparov, and Emma Ly, who earned second place statewide. Both teams are part of the MESA program at 九色视频, which supports students from historically underrepresented backgrounds in STEM fields.
鈥淭his is what possibility and preparation look like in action,鈥 said 九色视频 President Dr. Kimberly Rogers. 鈥淪udinma, Emily, Arthur, Lola, Emma and their teammates show the power of community college to fuel innovation, confidence, and leadership. We鈥檙e so proud, not just of what they built, but of who they鈥檙e becoming.鈥
You can watch Team Decon鈥檚 winning pitch in the competition livestream below.