{"id":237094,"date":"2025-10-30T07:15:40","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T11:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=237094"},"modified":"2025-10-31T15:36:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T19:36:21","slug":"meet-the-undergraduate-liam-tyler-28-clas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/10\/meet-the-undergraduate-liam-tyler-28-clas\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Undergraduate: Liam Tyler \u201828 (CLAS)"},"content":{"rendered":"

They say necessity is the mother of invention. This adage certainly proved true for Liam Tyler ’28 (CLAS), a sophomore double-majoring in earth science and geographic information science, when he moved into the <\/span>Innovation\u00a0House<\/span><\/a>\u00a0at the beginning of his UConn journey.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this dorm community, his neighbors were fellow tinkerers, engineers, and creatives, all interested in exploring innovative solutions to the world\u2019s problems. And Liam encountered one such problem right away:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve ever lived in a dorm, you know shower caddies suck,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re just not good. And they\u2019re never the right size. So, I was thinking, having one that you could just change to be the right size for you, that would be super nice.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

During the spring semester of his first year at UConn, Liam joined Innovate Labs\u2019 Innovate2Create program, a nine-week experience that helped him move his idea from concept to execution. He didn\u2019t have any prior 3D modeling or printing experience, but he learned quickly with the support of Innovate Labs\u2019 team, including lab manager Audrey Larson \u201826 (ENG), who <\/span>started her own apparel business<\/span><\/a>\u00a0when she was a\u00a0first-year student.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Liam\u2019s concept became the ClickyCaddy, a modular and customizable shower caddy that allows people to choose any size and design that they like.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To his surprise, he took first place in the program\u2019s culminating event, where each student in the cohort had an opportunity to pitch their inventions to a panel of judges. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI did not expect that, but it was incredible,\u201d Liam says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The prize was a $1,000 scholarship put toward his UConn tuition. Since his victory, Liam has been pondering what\u2019s next for ClickyCaddy \u2013 patenting the concept? Creating an online store to capitalize on interest from fellow students? <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

His\u00a0initial\u00a0experience with producing and pitching a product taught him that the concept is only the beginning; turning a product into a successful business requires a whole ecosystem of people helping with\u00a0logistics, from production to web presence.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLuckily, I have some friends that are studying marketing,\u201d Liam says, adding that the concept continues to inspire informal collaborations among his friends as they think about upscaling the idea.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For Liam, creative problem-solving guides his interests in the classroom, as well. Over the summer, he completed an internship with Chandi Witharana, an assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment (NRE), working with geographic information systems (GIS) technology to assign coordinates to aerial images. He also worked on training an AI model to detect utility poles, which allows issues in the power grid to be easily located, prioritized, and fixed.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This semester, he is completing an additional independent study project with Witharana, centered on understanding landscape patches created by beavers \u2013 the environments beaver dams create. These projects revolve around Liam\u2019s interest in geography and environmental structures, both natural and built.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Liam is pursuing the Environmental Earth Sciences Accelerated Degree program, which allows students to earn their master\u2019s degree in just one year after receiving their bachelor\u2019s. He is interested in how his expertise can align with natural disaster relief.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of careers in geography that I just didn\u2019t know even existed,\u201d Liam says.<\/span><\/p>\n

He cites the work of\u00a0Christopher Burton, assistant professor\u00a0in the Department of Geography, Sustainability, Community, and Urban Studies, who\u00a0does research in this field.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to his work on ClickyCaddy, Liam also applies his craftsmanship to a good cause. In his spare time, he volunteers with the UConn club <\/span>Knit for NICU<\/span><\/a>, which\u00a0donates hand-crafted\u00a0knit\u00a0and crocheted\u00a0gifts, like blankets and plushies, to\u00a0infants in intensive care.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Month of Discovery<\/em><\/h3>\n

October is the\u00a0Month of Discovery<\/a>, when undergraduates are introduced to the wealth of research and innovation opportunities at UConn. This month, enjoy profiles of outstanding undergraduate innovators on UConn Today, attend a full slate of programming on campus and online, and register for\u00a0Discovery Quest<\/a>\u00a0to launch your undergraduate experience to new heights.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inventing a smart solution for a perennial problem of dorm living<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":237095,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,1731,2649,156,2076,99,2235,2306,2458],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2413],"class_list":["post-237094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas","category-entrepreneurship","category-blue-pride","category-profile","category-research","category-student-life","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-voices","category-undergraduates"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-26 02:33:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237094"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237144,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237094\/revisions\/237144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/237095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237094"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=237094"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=237094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}