Clinic Milestone Awards Honor Extraordinary Sponsors

Harvey Mudd College’s annual Clinic Milestone Awards honor extraordinary Clinic Program sponsors committed to investing in students and the future of STEM. At the 2025 Projects Day Luncheon on May 6, awards were presented to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Medtronic.

The Clinic Program is an internationally recognized hallmark of the College that engages juniors and seniors in solutions of real-world, technical problems for industrial clients. Each year, more than 40 organizations, many with HMC alumni employees who support the program as liaisons and advisors, work with approximately 250 students to develop solutions to business challenges and push forward the industry standard in research and development or build a working prototype. The business value of the Clinic outcomes often leads sponsors to return, and the Milestone Award celebrates returning Clinic sponsors.

Since 1980, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has sponsored 35 Clinic projects. In service to the Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration and other federal agencies, LLNL translates innovations into national security and global stability. The company leverages cutting-edge STEM research to produce science discoveries and faster innovation cycles. In the 2024–2025 academic year, the Clinic student team worked with LLNL—including advisors Fikret Aydin, Helgi Ingolfsson and Frederick H. Streitz ’83, P’13 P’13—to improve access to molecular dynamics simulations of protein-membrane interactions, which are highly relevant in cancer but cannot be directly experimentally observed. Prior Clinic–LLNL projects have included Empirical Scaling of Scientific Machine Learning Models (2023–2024), Estimating Sampling Convergence in Molecular Dynamics Simulations (2022–2023) and Ubiquitous Nuclear Threat Detection Campaigns (2018–2019).

Medtronic is a global leader in medical technology, services and solutions and works to develop and manufacture healthcare technologies and therapies. The company aims to contribute to human welfare and address complex and challenging conditions. Since 1995, Medtronic has sponsored 15 Clinic projects. In the 2024–2025 academic year, the HMC Medtronic Clinic team improved the manufacturing of continuous glucose monitors by addressing an inconsistent step in the assembly process of one of the company’s diabetes blood-glucose monitors through a custom ergonomic system. Prior Medtronic Clinic projects have included Characterization of CO2 Blow Off in ECCO2R (2023–2024), Miniaturization of Lifetime Optical Reader Device for Glucose Monitoring (2011–2012) and Optical Glucose Sensor: Lifetime Based Reader Device (2010–2011).

Harvey Mudd’s Clinic Program

Since 1963, Harvey Mudd students have tackled challenging problems in 1,989 Clinic projects for 613 clients, many of them Fortune 1000 companies. In recent years, the program has grown to include a Climate Clinic that explores innovation in climate technology. The Clinic Program at Harvey Mudd has been replicated by institutions worldwide. The National Academy of Engineering recognized the program and three HMC faculty members—Clive L. Dym, M. Mack Gilkeson and J. Richard Phillips—with the 2012 Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education “for creating and disseminating innovations in undergraduate engineering design education to develop engineering leaders.”