Author: brownet

Meghna Menon

BSE ’18, Electrical Engineering

In 2015, the World Bank recorded 53.1 infant deaths per 1,000 child births in low-income countries. Studies have shown that kangaroo care (KC), which is defined as skin-to-skin contact between the caregiver and infant, significantly improves health and developmental outcomes for infants. However, many of the current infant incubators and other infant warming devices lack this aspect of skin-to-skin contact. The Initiative is a team developed out of the university student group Michigan-Health Engineered for All Lives (M-HEAL) that is working to combine this method with a standalone incubator device to create a sustainable, low cost hybrid infant warmer for developing areas in the world. This project aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3.2: By 2030, end preventable deaths of newborns and children under five years of age, with all countries aiming to reduce…under- five mortality to at least as low as 25 per 1000 live births. In order to introduce our device into communities that are willing to accept it culturally, The Initiative is working with Soddo Christian Hospital in Soddo, Ethiopia as well as partnering with the organization Clinic At A Time (CAAT) based in the northern Gojjam region of the country. We currently interface with the UMHS to get active clinician input from nurses and neonatologists to ensure our device will find success in Ethiopia in the coming years. Our team is prototyping and testing our infant warmer device throughout the 2016-2017 year as well as planning travel to meet our community partners in Ethiopia in May of 2017 to collect user feedback. Our Team Website: http://theinitiativeannarbor.weebly.com/ Our Website under MHEAL: http://mheal.engin.umich.edu/theinitiative/

Library Mentor: Leena Lalwani

Isabel McMullen

BA ’17, Political Science and Spanish

This project is an exploration of a political third party in the American southwest active in the 1970s called the Raza Unida Party. This party was formed by Chicanos (Mexican-Americans) and designed to address specific issues within the Chicano community at the local level. I want to understand how supporters and leaders of the party overcame resource, education, and organization challenges to form a political party, how the leaders measured and defined their own success, and what effects their success had on the community. I plan to answer these questions in two primary ways. First, I will be using data from Census and other surveys to look at demographic data like housing, income, education rates, Hispanic population and more in certain areas where RUP was present and not present across time. Through this process I hope to determine whether there were significant differences between RUP counties and non-RUP counties and whether improvements were made across time where the party was prominent. The second part of my research will be archival work in the University of Michigan libraries and the Benson library at the University of Texas where the Raza Unida Party records are stored. I also will be conducting interviews with original members of the party in order to gain a more complete picture of the nuances that define their political participation. Beyond the fact that this research is a case study of a population and historical movement which is not widely recognized or understood, the implications extend far beyond just this one case and can provide depth and understanding to models of minority participation in local politics.

Library Mentor: Julie Herrada

Larissa Marten

BFA ’17, Theatre & Drama

I Killed the Cow is a devised, solo, multi-media theatre piece that I have written under the supervision of Gillian Eaton, Assistant Professor of Theatre at the University of Michigan. It will be performed in the Duderstadt Video Center in March 2017. During both performances, it will be filmed, and on the last performance it will be live streamed. I Killed the Cow centers around the journey of one woman, as she unearths the moments that have shaped her into the sexual being that she is. This piece begs the question: how can we become fully actualized sexual beings, with the stigmas and experiences associated to sex in today’s society. As a multimedia theatre piece, I Killed the Cow includes components of many different art forms. Despite being a solo show, the creative process requires the expertise of a composer, sound engineer, and an entire film team to tackle the supporting art forms that will bolster the solo performance itself. As such, each of these roles will offer students from a wide range of artistic fields the opportunity to lead their own components of the creative process and hire their own support teams to successfully complete the original score, filmed projections, and live design components that will complement the performance on stage. Additionally the audience will be integral to the show. The show begins with each audience member answering questions on a sheet of paper, such as, “My first sexual partner’s name was…” and, “The last person I talked to about sex was…” There are moments in the show where I, the performer, will use these names as extra characters in the story; creating audience inclusion without forcing participation.

Library Mentor: Meredith Kahn

 

Jessica Lowen

PhD ‘18, Anthropology

The UNITE Michigan project investigates factors that contribute to the problem trafficking victims and their advocates in accessing services. The explore the source of this issue, UNITE Michigan is building an inventory of Michigan organizations that are involved in anti-human trafficking efforts and gathering information about the services these groups provide. The final product will be an interactive comprehensive digital map that will be publically available and may improve the process by which activists, advocates, and providers refer victims and survivors to services for housing, legal help, and rehabilitation. The project objectives include: organizing data for a dissertation on anti-trafficking social movements, identifying service gaps and redundancies, and  creating a referral directory for service providers. The map will also capture the financial, personal, and referral relationships among these organizations. This map will be made publicly available online, initially via a link to my U-M website and eventually transferred to a site associated with a well-established social service agency in Detroit. In this way, the resource can be maintained and/or adapted to future community needs.

Library Mentor: Justin Joque

Chris Karounos

MS ‘19, Natural Resources and Environment

This student team is seeking to combat ongoing deforestation and prevent species extinctions through the creation of a social impact video game. The game’s purpose is two-pronged. First, it is educational. In order to advance in the game, the player must apply concepts in ecology and conservation. In addition to being educational, the second purpose is to donate a portion of revenue to fund real life reforestation projects run by Third Millennium Alliance in Ecuador. Its real-world significance is not only through educating the online community but also through curbing biodiversity loss and climate change (regenerating tropical forests sequester megatons of carbon dioxide). This innovation will serve the international community by mitigating climate change through funding reforestation You can learn more about current team members at similemedia.github.io/ImpactVideoGame.

Library Mentor: Justin Schell

Clara Cullen

BS ’17, International Studies

For over 10 years, The Quito Project (TQP) has collaborated with communities in Ecuador to meet the ever-changing needs of Quito’s urban poor. Each summer, TQP partners with a local university to run an educational program for 60 students, and throughout the year we recruit undergraduates from U-M to serve as tutors. Despite the successes of our program, we recognize that very few of our tutors possess formal backgrounds in education and feel that our organization would benefit from the guidance of faculty with more experience in international education. For this reason, we propose a faculty-led workshop on community-engaged education to prepare U-M students to be more effective teachers and ambassadorial figures of U-M during their time abroad. We envision this workshop as an interactive learning experience open to any student traveling abroad for the purpose of community-engaged education. Ultimately, we recognize that students’ actions abroad reflect upon our university and its values, and hope this project will have a positive, far-reaching impact for both our university’s international reputation and the communities in every corner of the world where U-M students are engaged in international education.

Library Mentor: Gabriel Duque

Jana Wilbricht

PhD ’19, Communication Studies

Many American Indians and Alaska Natives living on rural Indian reservations in the U.S. experience significant health disparities, and the lack of public transportation, broadband Internet, telephone lines, and the small number of health clinics in the area, which are often far away, make accessing health information difficult.

In my community-based participatory research project, I will explore the role of tribal radio in providing access to accurate, culturally relevant health information for rural American Indian reservation residents. Tribal radio is a unique medium which plays a critical role in informing community members about health issues and encouraging prevention and treatment, thereby helping to reduce health disparities.

My community partners for this project are the radio stations KUYI, owned and operated by the Hopi Tribe in Arizona, and KYUK in Bethel, Alaska, the first radio station in the U.S. to be owned and operated by an American Indian tribe (the Yup’ik).

My mixed-methods approach will include individual interviews with key stakeholders at each station, focus groups with local listeners, a content analysis of health-related programming on each station, and a survey sent to all U.S. tribal radio stations. Results from this study will help us understand and improve health information dissemination on rural Indian reservations. It will also provide station managers with insights gained from the focus groups, and directly applicable health communication strategies.

Library Mentor: Judy Smith

Matthew White

BSN ’17, Nursing

The Student Advisory Group on Engagement (SAGE) within the Center for Engaged Academic Learning is made up of undergraduate students from across campus and disciplines who collaborate with faculty, staff, and community members to create and enhance engaged learning opportunities by integrating the voices, ideas, and attitudes of students and community members. SAGE is organizing a campus day for high school students participating in the Young People’s Project (YPP) that would include focus groups with members of YPP with the goal of improving the program and a library project with the goal of increasing technology literacy skills. YPP is a math literacy program that uses a near-peer model. U of M hires undergraduate students to train high school students in how to teach math to middle and upper elementary school students in their communities. The goal of YPP is to help students from traditionally marginalized populations develop both math literacy skills and participate in community building and engagement. SAGE will organize the campus day with two broad goals: to evaluate the training that high school students in YPP receive and to instruct them in critical technology literacy skills such as using a library database to conduct a research project.

Library Mentor: Alex Rivera

Miranda Veeser

BS ’16, International Studies

ADAPT is a team of four students from LS&A, Engineering, Business, and Art & Design. We design functional, durable, and beautiful products for people using assistive devices. In order to create the best quality product, we continually work with our clients, ensuring our end users are kept in mind and involved throughout the design process. Our first project, the RainGuard, is a small clip that attaches to the side of the wheelchair in order to hold up an umbrella. This product was designed because of a conversation with an end user from the Paralyzed Veterans of America. He explained to us how difficult it could be if the weather was bad: by the time he would have pulled out an umbrella, he would have been soaked, with no free hands to wheel himself to his destination. After hearing about this, we realized most spaces and products are not designed with differently-abled people in mind. ADAPT has collaborated with multiple professors at U of M and other universities, the University of Michigan Health System, and ThingSmiths for this project. In designing these products, one of our primary aims is to help alleviate the negative stigma placed on those using assistive devices.

Library Mentor: Paul Grochowski

Ting Su

MA ’16, Center for Chinese Studies

I am proposing a study on the Tibetan cultural heritage from the perspective of Tibetan dance by examining how professional dance artists passed knowledge on to both their students and respective offspring through their oral histories. Rather than presenting a chronological narrative of the artists’ personal experiences, my research is organized temporally and geographically, analyzing the relationships among cultural heritage, choreography, self-identity, and space. By choosing an artist as a case study to link their own narratives and historical events happened in China over the past decades, I am suggesting that the crucial roles of these dance individuals as a vehicle carrying Tibetan cultural heritage through their performing, learning, teaching, directing, choreographing as well as researching process. This digital collection can be an interesting and unique source for both U-M students and faculty members and scholars in the North America who are interested in Tibetan culture and Chinese ethnic minority dance. Other than receiving funding from U-M Library, I am also grateful for the general financial supporting from Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, The Center for World Performance Studies and Rackham Graduate School. This project will also be an crucial part of my MA thesis.

Library Mentor: Liangyu Fu