Professor of Chemistry Akos Vertes always aims to involve his graduate students in invention work and distribute credit fairly. “It’s part of their education; they learn not just about publishing new work but get to know the patenting and commercialization processes,” he has said. Laine Compton, MS ’14, got to see her name on the patent for the award-winning LAESI-DP 1000 Direct Ionization System, which quickly reveals the chemical composition of a biological sample.