Author: brownet

Rachel Ross

BSE ’17, Biomedical Engineering

BLUElab’s purpose is to co-design sustainable technology in Gujarat, India to improve quality of life. We work with our partner community in Dolatpura to understand problems community members face daily. Our team brings together a diverse group of students: engineers, scientists, artists, and business leaders. Furthermore, we collaborate with faculty along with external experts on the topic of human-centered design. Lastly, we collaborate with the SETCO Foundation in India to better understand Indian culture and the community we work with. Our current project is expanding our low-smoke stove into two communities. There are very distinct qualities to our stove design and implementation plan. Our stove design maintains the mud stove base women are already accustomed to resulting in high acceptance of our stove. Likewise, our stove cost is extremely low compared to alternatives. Our design features a ceramic pipe that diverts smoke away from the user, ensuring more complete fuel combustion that results in safer, colorless smoke. Through reducing volatile organic compound emissions by 50%, our stove prevents respiratory health problems while reducing symptoms of existing conditions. Furthermore, our implementation plan empowers women. Our plan relies on our first woman stove builder training women of other communities about the stove’s technical aspects. Next, the trained women will be able to bring the design into their communities. Through stove building, women will be entrepreneurs and gain some income independence and power within their households. For more information, please visit: https://bluelabindia.wordpress.com/.

Library Mentor: Preet Rana

Sade Richardson

MPH/MSW’18, Health Behavior and Health Education & Management of Human Services

According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Women’s sexual and reproductive health is related to multiple human rights, including the right to life, the right to be free from torture, the right to health, the right to privacy, the right to education, and the prohibition of discrimination.” For this project, I will be working with the Grenada Planned Parenthood Association and will be developing a research protocol for the National Sexual and Reproductive Health Survey, an estimated budget to execute the national survey, and by extension, improve the human rights of women through learning more about their reproductive health needs. This survey has implications on the services provided by the agency and on policy for the country as it is the first survey of its kind in Grenada. This project will assist the organization with creating the steps for administering a National Sexual and Reproductive Health Survey and by extension, improve the human rights of women through learning more about their reproductive health needs. I believe that implementing this survey can improve social justice as it provides a voice for women and an opportunity for women to take control of how their sexual and reproductive health is perceived. Furthermore, expansion of services by the agency will result in better health outcomes for the community regardless of socioeconomic status.

Library Mentor: Kate Saylor

Arthi Nadhan

BSE ’19, Chemical Engineering

The purpose of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Overseas program is to provide participants and the general SWE community the opportunity to develop global awareness through an international Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics(STEM) Outreach program. We believe that outreach events are key to enhancing our organization’s mission as they provide a platform for individuals of all ages to realize their potential. Through programs like this one, we are able to bring out passion for science and engineering hidden in children of the next generation. We bring together a diverse community in which individuals can express themselves and their interests regardless of gender, ethnicity, and economic background. We hope to achieve this by conducting our SWE Overseas program in India, because the Indian STEM education system is very different from our own and provides a challenging environment to adapt alternative teaching methods. India houses a very diverse environment, and is therefore an ideal location to help develop global awareness and open-mindedness in our participants. Currently, we are building the SWE Overseas STEM Outreach Camp in Bharat Children’s Academy (BCA) in Walchandnagar, Maharashtra, India. We plan to reach out to organizations like Teach for India, and conduct workshops for underprivileged children, and teachers in the Indian community. We hope that we can extend our impact to such communities, while providing our participants an expanded cultural sampling of the diverse nation. We also plan to expand cultural awareness of our participants, our SWE section, and the University by travelling to different parts of India and sharing our experiences through social media and informational meetings.

Library Mentor: Jeff Martin

Adarash Mishra

BSE ’19, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science & Electrical & Computer Engineering

 

We are a group of individuals who see autonomous robotics as an exciting new field with endless opportunity to solve many problems we face as a civilization. As Michigan Wolverines, we have the determination, skills, tools, and the calling to innovate robotic systems and impact the world around us. We started this team to produce a competition ready robot for the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition in 2018 at Oakland University. Ultimately, our vision is a premier robotics team at U-M which fields teams in various competitions but also acts as a catalyst and hub by spinning out entrepreneurial and social ventures; a place where anyone regardless of background can come join the robotics family. We are fundraising to acquire all the components needed to complete our prototype robot. With the money you supply us, we plan to finish our first robot, perform testing and optimization, and finally send it out for educational outreach activities and competition. In addition to the competition, we want to engage and educate our campus and local community about autonomous systems. Outreach efforts will include demo days with hands-on sessions where young students in the local area schools can learn and interact with our vehicle and get exposed to STEM fields early on! This will be a great opportunity to show everyone the relevance of robotics in today’s world and to help build excitement for this field. Robotics is a multidisciplinary field, and we realize that our team must be multidisciplinary too. We are pursuing collaborative partnerships with the School of Information, Center for Entrepreneurship, Stamps School of Art & Design, and Robotics Institute. We are also talking with existing robotic teams UM:Autonomy and Michigan Autonomous Aerial Vehicles to work towards our vision of a premier competitive robotics team at Michigan.

Library Mentor: Paul Grochowski

Matthew Kunkel

BFA ’17, Theatre & Drama

“We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884–1915,” will be the senior thesis assignment for Matt Kunkel as he prepares to graduate the University of Michigan’s Department of Theatre and Drama. The project will be a full scale production of Jackie Sibblies Drury’s 2012 piece, “We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884–1915,” which is about 6 actors coming together to tell the largely forgotten Herero and Namaqua genocide which took place in Namibia between 1904 and 1907 when the region was a German colony, after Germany confiscated tribal lands and the Herero people rebelled. The retribution over four years by German soldiers resulted in more than 65,000 deaths. The play deals with the enormity of this story by introducing it through the actors of a “presentation” which is intended to tell the story, and shows how the various players respond to the gruesome facts during first rehearsal. This will be a full scale production utilizing a full team of student designers and performers across various disciplines at the University of Michigan to present this very relevant and topical piece.

Library Mentor: Loyd Mbabu

Nicole Khamis

BA ’17, International Relations

Our capstone event of the Michigan Refugee Assistance Program, “What We Carried: A Glimpse into the Refugee Crisis,” advocates for diversity and inclusion by giving members of the University of Michigan community the opportunity to directly hear from former refugees as they share their moving stories about resettling in the United States. We seek not only to raise awareness about this issue through educational events, but also work to pair students with incoming refugees through a partnership with Jewish Family Services, a local resettlement agency, and the Detroit Mayor’s Office. Our club relies on human interaction to break down stereotypes and the power of education to equip our campus community with the necessary tools to be engaged citizens in this unprecedented issue. To further this interaction, our capstone event will be a panel discussion. We will host recently resettled refugees and professionals within the refugee sector who will each speak about their involvement in the current crisis. Freelance photographer Jim Lommasson will also be joining us at this event, where he will be presenting his exhibit “What We Carried,” which captures stories of displacement, loss, and preservation of identity by people who have fled their homes to seek asylum. Through this event, we hope to humanize refugees by allowing them to reclaim their own narratives by allowing them space to speak about their stories of displacement. This is unique in that we are the first student club to host recently arrived refugees, and allow students to directly engage with those most deeply affected.

Library Mentor: Chuck Ransom

Jallicia Jolly

PhD ’20, American Culture

In the fourth decade of the global HIV pandemic, the U.S. faces a striking phenomenon: growing HIV rates among Black women in inner-city communities. In Detroit, a city with the highest concentrated poverty rates of 25 largest metropolitan areas, they accounted for 91% of all female HIV cases in 2012, which is over 4 times the national average (CDC 2013). HIV has important gender, sexual, and cultural dimensions that must be understood, as both the risk of contracting HIV and the consequences of being infected are different among women. To conduct this project, I will partner with Gospel Against AIDS (GAA) – the only faith-based HIV prevention educational and HIV testing organization in Michigan which provides HIV testing and treatment, spiritual care and counseling for people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. GAA’s incorporation of a groundbreaking spiritual component provides another scientifically acknowledged asset in supporting immune and mental health. This multi-sited investigation will study the socioeconomic and sexual experiences of Black women in three high-risk HIV communities in Detroit: Eastside, Highland Park, and Brightmoor. I will unearth the deeper intra-gender and intra-racial differences in: a) understandings of intimacy, risk, and vulnerability b) perceptions of and access to support and health services, and c) beliefs about health and wellness. This mixed-method study will employ ethnography (participant observation and semi-structured interviews), sexual health surveys, and PLACE – a rapid-assessment methodology that uses a systematic venue-based sampling approach to improve HIV/AIDS prevention programming in places transmission is likely to occur (Gomez et al 2009).

Library Mentor: Judy Smith

Amina Hussein

PhD ’20, Applied Physics

While women are increasingly pursuing professions in “non-traditional” workspaces – whether academic, industrial, or corporate – their identities can often be represented as one-dimensional and monolithic. “Women in STEM.” “Women in Male-Dominated Fields.” Watching a friend discuss her doctoral research on material culture in the Victorian period, while applying makeup with care and attention, inspired me to pursue a three-dimensional exploration into the personal lives of professional women. The goal of this work is to amplify the voice of the individual women and to give each woman control over her own narrative. We will produce a series of short videos featuring women from a diversity of fields (Science and Arts, as well as Engineering and Business) discussing their work while doing an activity outside of that environment: one that is personal and representative of a passion outside of their professional life. This work will showcase the accomplishments and multifaceted interests of individual women in their own voices. We want to show not only that these women exist, but also that they do not conform to any one stereotype. We plan to recruit self-identified women in the Ann Arbor/Detroit area to appear in the videos, which will be archived on a website available to the public. A selection of 5-10 videos will be exhibited on campus. We will collaborate with Prof. Aileen Huang-Saad, Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering, Entrepreneurship and Engineering Education, for guidance on the project. As well, we will discuss themes with Prof. Candace Moore in the Departments of Screen Arts & Cultures and Women’s Studies.

Library Mentor: Justin Schell

Charity Hoffman

PhD ’20, American Culture

Espwa Berlancia is a malnutrition clinic in a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Haiti’s persistent childcare crisis has been exacerbated in recent years by natural disasters. Espwa Berlancia is one of only four in-patient malnutrition clinics in the country, a last buffer against conditions that otherwise force parents of severely malnourished infants and toddlers to turn their children over to orphanages, lest they die of illness or starvation. The clinic helps nurse those babies back to health with the aim that they can be returned to their families. Our project hopes to achieve the following: development of parent education curriculum (to be written in English and translated into Haitian Creole), supply printing of materials for parents who participate in education program, assist in setting up the physical space for the parent education center in Petionville, Haiti, and help with initial employment of Haitian staff for parent education center, including a health and nutrition educator, a business instructor, and agricultural instructor. You can read more about the malnutrition clinic here: http://www.espwaberlancia.org/ And about the new parent education program here: http://www.espwaberlancia.org/sustainability-program.html

Library Mentor: Tyler Ni

Vivienne Hazzard

PhD ’19, Nutritional Sciences/Health Behavior and Health Education

The study seeks to advance understanding of disordered eating in female and male collegiate athletes. Additionally, the proposed study aims to validate an eating disorder screening tool that can be used for female and male collegiate athletes. This project allows for the University of Michigan School of Public Health to collaborate with the Eastern Michigan University Athletic Department and will culminate in written papers in peer-reviewed journals to share the findings. Overall, the aims of the proposed project are: 1. To validate the Eastern Michigan University eating disorder screening tool by conducting principal component analysis, examining internal consistency of the questions loading onto the same factors, and using the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire as the existing criterion to compare the new tool against. 2. To investigate longitudinal trends in eating disorder risk among male and female athletes from Freshman to Senior year. 3. To look cross-sectionally and prospectively at eating disorder scores by weight categories, specifically “normal” weight athletes versus underweight athletes versus overweight/obese athletes. 4. To examine the cross- sectional and prospective associations between eating disorder screening score and menstrual regularity in female athletes.

Library Mentor: Carol Shannon