Startup Guardion Wins NASA Science Mission Directorate Challenge

Guardion logo

MIE Professor Yung Joon Jung’s startup, Guardion, was one of six winners of the NASA Science Mission Directorate Challenge. The Entrepreneurs Challenge sought to identify individuals and promising commercial companies working on technology that will advance the state-of-the-art in three broadly defined technology focus areas: Physics-based transfer learning and artificial intelligence, Advanced mass spectrometry, and Quantum sensors.


Guardion, co-founded by Professor Yung Joon Jung, mechanical and industrial engineering, was a winner of the NASA Science Mission Directorate Entrepreneurs Challenge. The startup is a spin-out of the work Jung has done in his lab at Northeastern, initially through National Science Foundation ECCS and PFI grants.

Guardion uses nanotechnology to create highly sensitive, low-cost, networked detectors of radioactivity and nuclear radiation. The radiation sensor is at least an order of magnitude more sensitive than currently available options. It’s also smaller and less expensive to build. A network of the sensors can be deployed in cities where they act as guards, sensing radiation-generated ions to preventatively detect the early presence of specific radiation from nuclear or radiological terrorism. They may also be given to first responders who are responsible for isolating an effected area. Having a network of sensitive detectors would allow first responders to instantaneously and remotely map the perimeter, which could save lives.

In 2017, Guardion won a $50K prize at the MassChallenge Accelerator Program and a $550K additional grant through the CASIS-Boeing Prize for Technology in Space. The NASA Entrepreneurs Challenge sought to identify individuals and promising commercial companies working on technology that will advance the state-of-the-art in three broadly defined technology focus areas: Physics-based transfer learning and artificial intelligence, Advanced mass spectrometry, and Quantum sensors.

Related Faculty: Yung Joon Jung, Swastik Kar

Related Departments:Mechanical & Industrial Engineering