UCF chemistry professors Chris Clausen and Cherie Geiger (above) — along with professor Debra Reinhart, a student and a KSC engineer — helped developed a more efficient way to clean up contaminated sites.

New technology that cleans up underground sites contaminated by aerospace chemicals has received NASA’s Government and Commercial Invention of the Year and Innovation of the Year awards. It was developed by three University of Central Florida professors, a student and an environmental engineer at Kennedy Space Center and was tested at a Cape Canaveral launch site.