Imagine it as the medium where the spirits of Albert Einstein and Ansel Adams come together. Think Marie Curie and Georgia O’Keeffe. Louis Pasteur and Gordon Parks can be seen there. And Charles Darwin and Leonardo da Vinci.

Envisioning Research is NC State’s image competition that has long paid tribute to the idea of the artful eye used in scientific research. Every January, the contest opens to undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff and postdocs to submit images that represent their scientific explorations. They can submit multiple formats, including videography, photography, microscopy and graphics. 

And Envisioning Research just turned a decade old. With that staying power in mind, NC State magazine is featuring a selection of the 2025 winners for our readers to see where an abstract meets a canvas and art and science merge.

“It means the research reaches beyond the lab: it becomes something shareable and memorable that helps build public understanding, inspires students, and highlights that engineering is both rigorous and creative.”
— Haitao Qing ’25 PHD

The contest, which is hosted by the Graduate School, Office of Research and Innovation, Office of Undergraduate Research, NC State University Libraries, and University Communications and Marketing, awards a total of $4,200 in prizes to first- and second-place winners every August. “The Envisioning Research contest allows our research community to share its work with a broad audience while also highlighting the wide variety of ways NC State is advancing our understanding of the world around us,” says Matt Shipman, assistant director of research communications in University Communications. “It is, literally, wonderful.”

Click on the images below to learn more about each research project.

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