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For nearly 30 years, cosmologists have attributed the universe’s accelerating expansion to dark energy, a force that has never been directly detected and whose physical nature remains unknown. Desre proposed that the same thermodynamic laws governing black holes also apply to the universe’s outer boundary, and that the natural accumulation of entropy at this boundary drives cosmic expansion. His project, ΛCDM+S – Thermodynamic Cosmology: Simulating the Universe’s Expansion Without Dark Energy, reproduced standard cosmological predictions with 93.4 percent accuracy while also offering potential explanations for two long-standing measurement discrepancies that have challenged the field for years.

The small clip-on sensors hospitals use to check blood oxygen levels work by shining light through the skin. Kaur identified the source of a persistent reading error as a second pulsing signal, synchronized with blood flow but originating from a different part of the vascular system, that affects oxygen calculations differently in darker skin. Her project, Eigenpulse: Eliminating Demographic Bias in Pulse Oximetry and Remote PPG from First Principles, isolates and removes this signal from the measurement process, reducing demographic bias from 2.3 percent to less than 0.15 percent.

Patel, who has personally discovered two asteroids through the International Astronomical Search Collaboration, developed an automated system that helps volunteer astronomers determine whether faint moving objects in telescope images are genuine asteroids, improving the accuracy and reliability of citizen science efforts in planetary defence.

Cowen identified compounds that block the molecular pumps used by a common drug-resistant fungus to expel antifungal medication, restoring the drug’s effectiveness in killing the infection while confirming minimal toxicity to healthy human cells.

Vuurmans built a computational tool to evaluate potential treatments for brain diseases across five stages of crossing the blood-brain barrier, the biological filter that prevents most drugs from reaching the brain.

Rajesh developed an AI-powered platform to design aptamers, short DNA sequences used to detect disease-related proteins, providing a rapid alternative to the expensive, months-long laboratory process currently required to develop diagnostics for conditions such as sepsis.