Contra Costa College students Sudinma Thapa and Emily Au have just been named national champions in engineering!
Thapa and Au are students at CCC as well as Middle College High School, the high school on CCC’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—and brought home the national title.
The MCHS MESA program operates under the CSU East Bay MESA Center, led by Director Travis Nelson. CCC’s 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‑Chair of Engineering & Physics, and Jeff Kamalian, Senior Science Laboratory Coordinator in CCC’s STEM department, provided critical mentorship and technical support that helped elevate both teams to victory.
Also representing CCC at the state level was Team Readefine, made up of fellow Middle College and CCC students Arthur Kim, Lola Abduggaparov, and Emma Ly, who earned second place statewide. Both teams are part of the MESA program at CCC, which supports students from historically underrepresented backgrounds in STEM fields.
“This is what possibility and preparation look like in action,” said Contra Costa College President Dr. Kimberly Rogers. “Sudinma, Emily, Arthur, Lola, Emma and their teammates show the power of community college to fuel innovation, confidence, and leadership. We’re so proud, not just of what they built, but of who they’re becoming.”
You can watch Team Decon’s winning pitch in the competition livestream below.