Education Announcements for Oct. 17

Devon Anderson, a Carson City native and a 2005 graduate of Carson High School, has been chosen as a finalist in the national Collegiate Inventors Competition. He and his teammates at Dartmouth (who have recently graduated) have been working on a safer sponge for use in the operating room. Devon's parents, Dennis and Lynn Anderson, reside in Carson City.

Anderson's team has developed an "absorbent, bioresorbable surgical sponge," which if accidentally left in a patient's body during surgery, will breakdown into harmless components.

The 10 finalists, consisting of three individual students and seven teams, will present their inventions to an esteemed panel of judges, which includes several inductees to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, on Oct. 26 in Washington, D.C. The winners will be announced on Oct. 27. The top undergraduate winner will receive $10,000, with second and third place winners receiving $5,000 and $2,500. The top graduate winner will receive $15,000, with second and third place winners receiving $10,000 and $5,000.

Amy Lynn Cole, of Gardnerville, recently graduated with an Associate in Science in Nursing from Excelsior College, Albany, N.Y.

Excelsior College, founded in 1971, is an accredited, private, nonprofit institution that focuses on the needs of working adults. Its primary mission is to increase access to a college degree for adult learners by removing obstacles to their educational goals.

Jesse Walser-Castro from Carson City, who began his first semester at Concordia University in Portland, Ore., this fall, was awarded a Lutheran High School Award, and President's Scholarship. He is a recent graduate from Sierra Lutheran High School.

Concordia University is a private, Christian, liberal arts university located in Northeast Portland, Ore. with a mission of preparing leaders for the transformation of society.