Dr. Annika Benson and her device for improving brain surgery outcomes are heading to Berlin in November.

Benson, a PhD researcher at Dalhousie University, captured the top prize at the Falling Walls Lab Atlantic competition at the Halifax Central Library on Monday evening. Her prize will be a fully paid trip to Berlin in early November, where she will compete against 100 other innovators in the global finals of the Falling Walls competition.

Falling Walls Lab is an international pitch competition that challenges students and early-career professionals to present their ideas in just three minutes. Fifteen people competed in the event on Monday.

The Atlantic Canadian winner has returned from Berlin with a prize in each of the last two years. Last year, Dal student Dina Rogers won the Science Breakthrough of the Year award in the Emerging Talents category with a novel method of deconstructing waste, allowing plastic constituents to be re-used.

Benson pitched a hand-held ultrasound device that can detect tumor tissues during brain surgery, to make sure all of a tumor has been removed during the procedure. She told the audience that there are currently no convenient and precise methods to make sure all of a tumor is removed, but her handheld device has demonstrated it can to do so.

In an interview, Benson said the device has emerged from work at the ultrasound lab at Dalhousie University – the same lab where Jeremy Brown developed Sound Blade, a device that uses sonic energy to cut tissue. Brown’s company Sound Blade Medical  closed a US$16.5 million (C$23.8 million) Series A funding round earlier this year.

“I’m very excited just to be able to talk about this [project] on a larger stage,” said Benson, who has been working on the project for eight years. “I’m used to just talking about it with ultrasound people.  . . . I’m also excited to see what other people are working on.”

The $250 second prize went to Blaine Fiss, also of Dalhousie. Fiss is a postdoctoral fellow working on a process that uses solar energy to break down “forever chemicals”, which are known for their extreme durability due to a strong carbon-fluorine bond.

Jayda Kruger, a Dal student studying marine biology and ocean science, took home the $100 third place prize for her work on eco-friendly concrete. Kruger has developed a method of injecting concrete with micro-organisms, which have captured CO2. The concrete can then be used for marine barriers that can defend against coastal erosion and become a foundation for such sea life as seaweed and barnacles.

Disclaimer: Peter Moreira of Entrevestor was a judge at the Falling Walls Lab Atlantic competition.