Author: brownet

Broghan Sagers

MA ’18

I am working with the Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas to invite Texans to experience and unite around the land that represents their history and future. By introducing the community to Big Thicket and the opportunities  on the preserve represent one side of the project’s mission. The innovative goal is to take the preserve to the people; instead of relying on people coming to the preserve, the preserve will take a more active role in the community outside of Big Thicket. The promotion of environmental stewardship and fostering of a community could ultimately spread to afterschool education programs or exhibits at the library.

The preserve itself will reach out reach out via social media, newspapers, and the national park rangers to find what the community wants to learn or share about Big Thicket National Preserve. By working in this collaborative manner, Big Thicket National Preserve will spread and strengthen ties between itself and local organizations, businesses, schools, libraries, and individuals. The preserve will change from the only entity attempting to create community ties to a point in an interconnected community working collaboratively; a single community that encompasses the preserve and those who live around it.

Library Mentor: Alex Deeke

Brigitte Smith

BA ’18

Our mission is to develop socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable water technologies to meet the identified needs of communities locally and abroad. Our current project is focused on installing a low cost and replicable Rainwater Catchment Systems throughout communities of Jicaral, Nicaragua. By engaging and enhancing our connections with the communities of Jicaral, we hope to build a sense of ownership among the people to ensure sustained success and positive impact of our systems. In addition, the NicarAGUA project empowers team members to innovate and engage in BLUElab’s design process throughout our projects with access to educational resources and experiential opportunities to advance members’ skills in this field of work.

Library Mentor: Jamie Niehof

Anna Lenhart

MPP ’18

Across campus, experts present on the technology, regulatory and business opportunities surrounding Autonomous Vehicles (AV). The events are fascinating, but experts frame them—it is time for an event that invites “lay citizen’s” to share their perspectives on AV. The AV Consensus Conference in Washtenaw County will be a form of participatory planning where lay citizens, with no formal expertise in a technology, are empowered to share their values, concerns, and suggestions. Our steering committee for the conference is building relationships with: INspire, Mcity, CivCity and the EPA participatory planning division. This project will also provide a consensus report will provide these organizations with information on public values, while also empowering citizens of Washtenaw County who are traditionally left out of these conversations.

Library Mentor: Paul Grochowski

Andrea Belgrade

PhD ’20

“Through my Eyes: Stories of Young Refugees” is an art exhibit and research project using Photovoice methodology. This project aims to provide refugees, especially children and adolescents, a voice in public discourse. This project aims to empower participants, increase understanding and empathy for these people, and help to build scholarly knowledge which may eventually inform policy both locally (within the schools for example) or nationally (federal policy). We will work with local school districts in Washtenaw County and Washtenaw Refugee Welcome, a non profit community organization. After our participants have taken their photographs and created captions, we will have them engage in debriefing focus groups where they will have a chance to discuss their photographs. The photographs, captions, and the focus group discussions will be coded to identify common themes that may arise for participants, helping us to understand both their shared and unique experiences. These photos will be displayed in the form of an exhibit to help educate the general public.

 Library Mentor: Justin Schell

Akira Nishii

BSE ’19 & BS ’19

Perch is a new student organization that aims to improve the undergraduate lab application process. We plan to achieve this through an online platform that centralizes communication between research faculty and students, as well as a standardized system of training and certifying research skills. The certifications (in laboratory techniques) we provide can be uploaded onto the online application platform to make students more attractive candidates to laboratories.

Library Mentor: Angie Oehrli

Parisa Soraya

MHI ’17, Health Informatics

Over one-half of all American adults live with one or more chronic medical conditions. The staggering rates of depression and suicide on college campuses have led to an increased push on administration to better serve the mental health needs of its students. Counseling services at universities are typically understaffed and the mental health of students living with chronic illness are typically not specifically met. Outside of college campuses, the chronic illness community at large is enormously disconnected. Often called “invisible illnesses,” feelings of loneliness are pervasive among these populations as patients do not feel fully understood or interpersonally connected, resulting in a high prevalence of depression. Find Your Ditto seeks to flip the traditional hospital support group structure on its head–no longer are individuals with chronic illness confined to getting support on a restricted date/time/location/topic basis. With Find Your Ditto, individuals with chronic illness can find a support system whenever and wherever they need it and begin to feel like “it’s not just me.” No other service for individuals with chronic illness provides an opportunity for on-demand nor in-person peer support. We are collaborating with the University of Michigan University Health Services (UHS) and Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) to promote the service to University of Michigan students.

Library Mentor: Patricia Anderson

Sarah Westrick

PhD ’20, Psychology

Our overarching goal is to bring science to underprivileged communities in a way that is engaging and interactive for students. By using live animals in our activities, we can engage students of all ages and increase the accessibility of ecology and evolution, an underdeveloped area of curriculum in the K-12 classroom. I propose we develop a Trinidadian guppy population specifically for use in outreach in the fields of evolution, ecology, and neuroethology. Guppies are an ideal system for this project because there are many different activities that can be done to explore different ecological and evolutionary concepts. In their natural environment, guppies exist in a gradient of environments that differ by food-availability and predation risk. Between these populations, we see large differences in morphology, behavior, and color that are easily identified by students of all ages. By using wild guppies in outreach, we can take advantage of these conspicuous differences produced by natural selection to teach evolutionary concepts to students. This project will be initiated in collaboration with MYELIN (Mentoring Youth and Early Leaders in Neuroscience), a student-led organization that serves a local community of underprivileged K-12 students. Partnering with CAN (Community Action Network), a non-profit organization dedicated to serving and providing support to the under-resourced communities located in Ann Arbor, MYELIN brings hands-on science activities to local after-school community centers in efforts to increase science literacy and interest amongst local student populations.

Library Mentors: Angie Oehrli and Karen Downing

Madalyn Purcell

BSI ’17, School of Information

Mentality Magazine is the first magazine at the University of Michigan dedicated solely to mental health. Through our magazine, we strive to open the dialogue and encourage people to prioritize their mental health. Mental health is a rising topic that is relevant to every single person at this university, yet it is often misunderstood or unaddressed. We aim to educate the Michigan community about mental health and what it really means to be affected by a mental illness. We also aim to change how people view and talk about mental health, how they treat others who are struggling, and how they address their own mental health and that of the people around them. The content of our magazine will include personal stories, inspirational pieces, artwork, photo features, spotlights on other student organizations, and interviews with professionals/experts. We also plan to promote the common interests of the many campus organizations devoted to mental health, such as Active Minds, SAPAC, WSN, and CAPS, by collaborating with them to publicize relevant campus events, news, and resources. Our publication will be completely free and distributed across campus in effort to engage as many people as we can in our conversations. By printing a mental health magazine, we are taking advantage of a unique opportunity to represent mental health through visual art, photography, design, and written articles – all of which can be physically placed in front of people and can inspire them to discuss mental health and thereby see its importance.

Library Mentors: Hailey Mooney and Breanna Hamm

Angela Perone

PhD ’19, Social Work & Sociology

In response to the discrimination that older adults in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community face in healthcare, employment, and businesses, “Serving with Pride” created a novel resource guide for LGBT older adults, allies, and service providers. LGBT older adults often struggle to find affirming service providers that commit to providing just services with dignity and care. This resource guide (both in electronic and print versions) will signal which organizations and businesses have policies protecting this community through the use of innovative icons. It also will provide the first focus on service providers in the aging network, an area often overlooked in such guides. Additionally, “Serving with Pride” will require organizations listed to sign a commitment to provide affirming and equal services to LGBT older adults.

Library Mentor: Darlene Nichols

Emily Mylrea

BFA ’17, Art & Design

I will be creating eight large-scale paintings based on Okinawa bingata, a type of textile with patterns unique to the Ryukyu Islands. Bingata is characterized by their bright and exotic images often used for traditional garments similar to kimono; however, it differs greatly from the aesthetic practice of mainland Japan. Okinawa has a rich history. For many centuries, it was the main port island of the East. As a result, Okinawa formed a hybrid culture, appropriating food, religion and art from countries such as India, China, and smaller surrounding islands. Japan never truly embraced Ryukyuan as one of its own. To make matters worse, the aftermath of WWII resulted in the American occupation of Okinawa. As someone that was born and raised in Okinawa before moving to America, I have struggled in finding a place to belong, further complicated by the tension between my two homes. I will be working with UMMA and the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology to research the history and gather diverse images of Western patterns and Asian/Okinawan patterns. These patterns will be layered over and under each other multiple times to address the complicated relationships formed between Okinawa, mainland Japan, and America, while exploring my own identity through these relationships. Through my personal examination of multicultural background, I will consider how identities intersect. Inviting multiracial people to join this conversation is pertinent in our society to encourage understanding of diverse experiences.

Library Mentor: Jamie Vander Broek