Author: brownet

Alexis Stanton

BS ’16, Women’s Studies/Psychology

The University of Michigan Pretty Brown Girl Dream Ball Celebration will be an empowering event—one in which we will invite the campus to join us in solidarity and celebration of Black and Brown student organizations. This is a campus-wide project, birthed from movements that have come before us (e.g. #bbum: Being Black at U of M) and informed by the current work Dr. Rob Sellers is embarking upon as the Vice Provost of Equity, Inclusion, and Academic Affairs. Our Pretty Brown Girl e-board is seeking to interview Black and Brown women on-campus to highlight their unique experiences—both positive and negative—at this institution. We would like to examine how student organizations can be vehicles of social change, and further explore the ways in which student participation and activism within student organizations works in conjunction with, or in opposition to larger institutional changes. We hope this event can serve as a platform for us to illustrate the importance of our impact on the lives of young girls/women, as well as highlight the connection to U of M’s greater goals of true diversity, equity and inclusion.

Library Mentor: Chuck Ransom

Harleigh Seyffert

PhD ’18, Naval Architecture

I would like to promote literacy, learning, and creativity by updating the library of the Washtenaw Youth Detention Center. As their funds are limited, the center’s library collection not been refreshed in several years. By updating the collection, we will increase access to the types of books that actively engage and reflect the diverse population of children who reside there. New collections will also allow us to expand reading activities and book club.

Library Mentor: Angie Oehrli

Tara Sebastian

BS ’17, Chemistry

The main objective of this GlobeMed initiative is to educate students about basic hygiene to reduce the rates of preventable infections. We will create a lesson plan and related exercises for the school teachers to implement on hygiene and nutrition with the help of our GROW (Grassroots On-site Work) interns traveling to the school during the summer. Our goals are not only to inform students, but also to help them translate these practices into real-life actions. Members of the Perquín community are frequently infected with easily preventable diseases because of poor hygiene. Through community outreach and education, we hope to better understand why this is the case and help lower the infection rates in the area. This would subsequently reduce the number of days that students need to miss school and help them be more informed about the process of contamination and infection.

Library Mentor: Carol Shannon

Kevin Rabideau

BSE ’17, Computer Science Engineering

This project’s aim is to build a lightweight and practical upper-body exoskeleton that augments the strength of a healthy user’s bicep and tricep. The purpose of this project and this build team as a whole is to prove that exoskeletons can be made in a way that is both practical and cheap so they can be used in real world settings. To make it practical, we’re using lightweight building materials to make it as comfortable as possible, and using an EMG control system that allows the user to control the exoskeleton by simply moving their arm as they normally would. To keep it cheap, we’re using pre-existing technology and applying it to exoskeletons. Along with these goals, we want others to see our work and build upon it to further advance the field of exoskeleton technology. To make this possible we’re keeping the entire project open source so it can be easily replicated and improved by other students around the world. For this exoskeleton, we expect to attain an increased bicep/tricep strength of at least 15 pounds, while being able to operate for several hours.

Library Mentor: Leena Lalwani

Beatriz Lozano

BFA ’16, Art

Leesta is an educational technology company that is answering the need for digital learning resources, diverse educational materials, and most importantly women’s representation in history. On the rare occasion that the stories of women are shared, they are often written for an adult audience; never have their stories been designed to teach history and inspire children the way Leesta is doing. Our team is currently creating a series of ten interactive and engaging timelines for 3rd-5th grade students that highlight the lives of amazing women in U.S. history. We have worked with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit to create a profile for Bessie Coleman, the first African American female pilot. As well as the Boggs center, where we have been working closely with friends of Grace Lee Boggs to create the most accurate profile for her life. Most recently we have met with Temple Grandin, a world-renowned inventor and autism activist, and are working directly with her to create her timeline. The series will be launched and available for purchase in September 2016 for schools, classrooms, homes, and after-school programs across the nation.

Library Mentor: Alexa Pearce

Adam Lott

MSI ’16, Information Science

My project concerns the digitization and preservation of The Saline Area Historical Society’s tape collection. Included in the collection are oral histories describing the history, life, and development of Saline, Michigan. Many local cultural institutions have video collections at high risk of degradation but lack the funds and expertise to migrate this content into a safer, more accessible format. Having experience digitizing video at archival standards, I discovered that the University of Michigan houses the tools necessary to do so. I see this project as a way of reaching out to local institutions in need of assistance and as a template for other students studying preservation to follow. There are literally millions of tapes in the wild in need of digitization and very few programs teaching preservationists how to do so. For this reason, I would like to see other students to use my project as inspiration for projects of their own.

Library Mentor: Shannon Zachary

Vincent Longo

PhD ’20, Screen Arts and Cultures

In 1946, entertainment legend Orson Welles adapted Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in 80 Days into Around the World, a multimedia Broadway musical extravaganza. Unfortunately the production quickly fell under financial disarray, and, just as quickly, the details of the production faded from cultural memory.

However, using materials from the Orson Welles archive here at the University of Michigan, over the past two years I reconstructed not only the play itself, but also the six missing film sequences that Welles shot for his it. This research revealed that, in several sequences, Welles blended film and live performance together so that both media interacted and depended on each other to function. Though this type of production became fairly popular after the 1970s, when Welles did it in 1946, this sort of multimedia production was nearly unheard of in America.

In order to give contemporary audiences a sense of what these film sequences may have looked like during a Broadway performance, this project aims to create animated visualizations that accurately portray all six film sequences. Simultaneously, this project aims to demonstrate creative and innovative uses for the University of Michigan’s unparalleled archival collections, outside applications in traditional research.

Library Mentor: Phil Hallman

Kevin Jiang

BSE ’18, Biomedical Engineering

Our team is developing a solution to a healthcare problem for rural Guatemalan clinics. We conducted a needs assessment, through observations and interviews with stakeholders, in Guatemala during March 2015, and now are focusing our literature review on respiratory diagnostics and breathing facilitation, both problems that we saw in country. Although technologies already exist for respiratory diagnostics and breathing facilitation, current technologies are not adapted for low-resource settings. We are working closely with community partners in Guatemala to understand the socio-economic and cultural landscape in which our device will be implemented to improve the sustainability of our device. Respiratory diseases are some of the most prevalent in Guatemala. Our device can help improve early diagnosis and treatment of respiratory diseases, leading to improved outcomes for patients. We plan on returning to Guatemala during May 2016 to discuss specific design concepts and prototypes with our stakeholders. Outside of collaborations with community partners, we are also collaborating with students in the School of Public Health with experience in and ties to Guatemala.

Library Mentor: Leena Lalwani

Alison Jensen

MPH ’16, Health Management and Policy

Roughly 48 million Americans, fully 14% of all households, lack access to healthy, affordable food. At the root of this problem is a landscape of unreliable transportation. CARt coordinates rides for low-income, low-vehicle access individuals to get to and from supermarkets, which are stocked with healthy, affordable food. We use existing rideshare infrastructure to coordinate these rides. Providing convenient, affordable, reliable transportation has benefits for supermarkets and rideshare companies, in increased customer base, as well as implications for society. The end users have increased access to healthier foods. By purchasing and consuming healthier foods, the burden of chronic disease will decline.

In May, we ran a month-long pilot with the Eight Mile Meijer in Detroit, where we were able to validate the needs of our customers. To attract customers, we partnered with MOSES, a faith-based organization with a large network in Detroit. We also collaborated with other community organizations, supermarkets, rideshare organizations and other stakeholders. The University of Michigan Library will be a great addition to our team.

Library Mentor: Pam MacKintosh

Katherine Irani

BA ’16, Women’s Studies

The purpose of this study is to learn from students enrolled in the University of Michigan, Washtenaw Community College, and Eastern Michigan University who have experienced or currently experience intimate partner violence in romantic and/or sexual relationships about what services they used and if they ever have reached out to anyone for help in their situation. Through interviews with participants, I hope to better understand how and where college student survivors sought help, their comfort levels with the services they used, and whether or not they faced any difficulties with seeking help. The objective of this study is to better understand the accessibility of sexual violence prevention services on college campuses for students and if there are sufficient, comprehensive services available to students of all social identities. It is the hope with this study that service providers for survivors may better understand any barriers or restrictions survivors may face relating to their different social identities in seeking help, and that from there they can better serve more underprivileged communities and create more inclusive resources for college students in abusive romantic and/or sexual relationships.

Library Mentor: Meredith Kahn