The Explorer Challenge Past Awardees
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Laudato si’ and the Land & Water Acknowledgement: Re-mapping the Natural World into an Urban Environment
Team lead: Paul Gasser
A collaboration among Marquette University, Wisconsin Indigenous partners, and Milwaukee community organizations, this project focuses on re-centering nature and rebuilding human connections with the natural world in urban environments, including the Marquette campus. Through ecological and cultural mapping and marking, and by convening collaborative discussions, the project will develop a shared vision for native habitat restoration on campus and in the city. Over the long term, the project will work to integrate Land and Water relationships into curricula, to emphasize the importance of these connections for human physical, emotional, and spiritual health, to create spaces for spiritual revelation and renewal through restoration and contemplation of the natural world on and around campus, and to study the effects of restoration on ecosystem health and human well-being. Project team: Paul Gasser (project lead), Biomedical Sciences; Bryan Rindfleisch, History; Samantha Majhor, English; Nate LeMoine, Biological Sciences; Jacqueline Schram, Diversity and Inclusion, University Relations
Inclusive Partnerships for Social Impact: A New Model of Community Engaged Research
Team lead: Abiola Keller
This project reimagines how Marquette University engages in research by fostering partnerships driven by community needs and expertise. The project is a collaboration with local nonprofit and community organizations to prioritize the health challenges they face, to recognize their unique strengths, and to jointly explore effective solutions. Through a structured process, faculty and student researchers will be paired with community partners, valuing each organization’s insights as central to the research process. By promoting inclusivity, transparency, and shared leadership, this project seeks to provide community organizations with actionable, research-backed solutions that strengthen their capacity to demonstrate impact. This project also provides students with unique opportunities to develop valuable research skills and gain experience in community engagement. Students will learn to communicate and collaborate with diverse partners, collect and analyze data, and help solve pressing challenges, thereby preparing them to make a difference both locally and beyond. Project team: Abiola Keller (project lead), Nursing; Dora Clayton-Jones, Nursing; Kristin Haglund, Nursing; Kelsey Otero, Community Engagement; Aleksandra Snowden, Social and Cultural Sciences; Kathryn Wagner, Business Administration
Interdisciplinary Pro Bono Persistent Pain Program (3PM Program)
Team lead: David Stocker
The interdisciplinary Pro Bono Persistent Pain Program (3PM Program) addresses the critical gap in accessible and comprehensive treatment for persistent pain through a collaborative effort among Marquette’s counseling psychology, physical therapy, and occupational therapy programs. This initiative offers an integrated and holistic approach to improve patient mental and physical functioning, leveraging the multidisciplinary expertise of students under professional supervision. The program is designed to serve the underprivileged populations of Milwaukee, enhancing accessibility to gold standard, inclusive treatment for those uninsured or underinsured. Project objectives include: (1) improving community accessibility to best-practice, interdisciplinary care for chronic pain conditions, (2) developing students’ ability to work in an interdisciplinary team incorporating interprofessional communication and best practice patient care, and (3) testing the hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between participating in the 3PM program and participants’ pain management self-efficacy and psychological and physical well-being. Project team: David Stocker (project lead), Physical Therapy; Kavitha Venkateswaran, Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology; Lee Za Ong, Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology; Christine O’Neil, Occupational Therapy
Training Students to Deliver a Student Wellness Program
Team lead: Alyson Gerdes
Over the past decade, professors and university administrators have witnessed a mental health crisis unfold on college campuses. This crisis was further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced college students to rapidly adjust to a qualitatively different way of life characterized by distance learning, social isolation, and perpetual vigilance. In response to current student needs, Gerdes and Dr. Nakia Gordon, associate professor of psychology, developed a six-week wellness program for Marquette undergraduate and graduate students. Each week of the program, a new wellness topic is introduced and practiced. Topics include 1) relaxation, 2) yoga, 3) gratitude and self-compassion, 4) emotion regulation, 5) goal setting and time management, and 6) nutrition and movement. Initial outcomes from a pilot study (AY 21-22) suggest promising results with improvements in wellbeing and mental health outcomes in students who participated. A larger, follow-up study employing a wait list control design demonstrated similar improvements in wellbeing and mental health outcomes among students who participated in the group relative to those in the wait list control group (AY 22-23). The primary aim of the proposed project is to transition the delivery of this evidence-based student wellness program to Marquette students who can continue to co-lead the wellness groups and train other students to do the same. The goal is to integrate the wellness program into existing student programming that would allow the program to be available to more students while also training student wellness leaders.
Restorative Practices Initiative at Marquette
Team lead: Louise Cainkar
This project focuses on supporting the institutional development, centering and strategic deployment of restorative practices at Marquette, drawing on existing university resources. Specifically, the team is proposing an innovative, multi-pronged initiative that will increase institutional capacity for promoting a culture of inclusion and restorative conflict resolution through the engagement, training and deployment of a diverse set of campus-wide stakeholders. The first parts of the project focus on developing on-campus leaders (including faculty, staff and students) to serve as an advisory group for the initiative and on building their skills and capacities in restorative practices. Step two is the development of an interdisciplinary undergraduate minor in restorative practices with a community engaged component designed in consideration of best practices, student outcomes and available resources. Following those, the team aims to offer an annual series of campus-wide trainings in restorative practices and to institutionalize a concrete, sustainable resource team that can be called upon to assist in restorative conflict resolution and climate improvement across campus. All of these steps will be taken in consultation with existing MU administrative structures. Finally, the team will develop short- and long-term institutional programming, including an internal conference and engagement with the larger Milwaukee community, that embeds restorative justice within campus life and provides resources for Milwaukee at large.
Measuring Student Development of Professional Formation Competencies
Team lead: Courtney Hanson
Career readiness is the foundation for successful entry into the workforce. It provides a framework for students to reflect on learning and experiences, regardless of academic program, and identify key skills they have developed that are most desired by employers. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) surveyed employers and identified the eight career readiness competencies ranked highest as indicators of career readiness. A cross-campus committee built upon the work of NACE to develop the Marquette University Professional Formation Competencies. Infusing Marquette’s guiding values into the NACE career readiness competencies, the committee provided structure to guide professional formation as a part of a distinctively Marquette education. This project aims to build on this work and measure career readiness, as defined by the Professional Formation Competencies, in order to grow awareness of career readiness on campus and improve the career readiness of all students.
Global Indigeneity and Land Struggle: Documentary Film for Sustainable Futures
Team lead: Tara Daly
Global Indigeneity and Land Struggle: Documentary Film for Sustainable Futures will explore the land and water struggles of Indigenous groups around the world at a comparative scale through in-person programming on campus. Over two years, six documentary filmmakers will be invited to campus to engage with students, faculty, staff, community partners and the public. Each semester the programming will include a film screening followed by a roundtable discussion led by Marquette faculty, staff, students and/or community members. The documentaries and round-table presentations will be incorporated into the curricula across colleges to ensure broad audience participation. They will also be scheduled at a reasonable pace with thoughtful and intentional programming for maximum event turnout. The proceedings from these events will be published in an open-access, digital format on a shared website. The directors’ visits will include programming that incorporates partners like the Indian Community School (Franklin, Wisconsin), UW-Milwaukee and the MKE film festival. Local radio and news networks will be contacted to maximize publicity. Ultimately, the project will result in external grant applications, a special journal issue and a website.
Go Wild: Pollinator Gardens and Prairie Restorations For Marquette's Campus
Team lead: Nathan Lemoine
The project will (1) allow Marquette to participate in federal and state initiatives to restore pollinator habitat; (2) serve as a teaching tool for biology, engineering, theology, and philosophy courses; (3) be an interactive and visual engagement fixture on campus that would connect the campus community to one of Wisconsin’s vital ecosystems.
Mindful Marquette Move-Out & Move-In
Team lead: Chelsea Malacara
This program will implement a more systematic approach to improve student’s move-out experience that (1) facilitates an internal awareness about what the term “away” means, shifting from a throw-away culture to an agile and resourceful one; and (2) establishes a closed-loop system in which gently used items will be repurposed or reused by incoming students the following year at a move-in yard sale in August.
Interdisciplinary Collaborative Training to Promote Psychological Wellness and Competency of Pre-Service Health Professionals
Team lead: Lee Za Ong
This pilot project aims to implement interdisciplinary collaborative training to promote the psychological wellness and competency of pre-service health professionals in nursing and clinical mental health counseling (counseling). We utilize a peer support model to enhance the counseling students’ group facilitation competency and nursing students’ psychological wellness. This project provides the group facilitation training that counseling students are not getting in their internships in community settings. It also supports nursing students’ psychological wellness development. We hypothesize that this interdisciplinary collaborative training will have an impact on both nursing students’ psychological wellness and counseling students’ group facilitation and supervision competency.
Spanish Language and Culture for Higher Education Professionals
Team lead: Melissa Econom
This project involves offering a course designed to support higher education professionals with basic working knowledge of Spanish, acquiring conversational skills, and intercultural competence. Employees enrolled in the course will participate in speaking, listening, reading, and writing activities. They will be introduced to basic every-day and academic-related vocabulary and will gain command of beginner grammatical structures and pronunciation. The course will also familiarize students with the varieties of Spanish spoken in the US and will raise awareness about social factors impacting Latinx communities and Latinx students' academic success. Beyond language acquisition, employees enrolled in the course will participate in dialogues around HSI and broader Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts through culturally-responsive programming, workshops and discussions.
On Your Marq: Transitions for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Team lead: Ann Millard
The Department of Occupational Therapy and On Your Marq (OYM) will develop a cross-campus multidisciplinary collaboration to successfully transition Marquette University (MU) students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to off-campus, community living. This program will specifically focus on functional achievement in daily living skills and community participation. Programming will be person-centered and developed to align with an individual’s preferred occupations, interests, strengths, and community needs for transitioning from the college living environment to adult living.
Voices Included for People of Color Theatre
Team lead: Stephen Hudson-Mairet
Voices Included for People of Color Theatre (VIP Theatre) directly serves People of Color and minoritized individuals who self-identify as theatre creators in all areas of theatre from performance to production, as well as their supporters. For emerging theatre professionals and seasoned theatre artists, our work seeks to be a uniting force that is positioned to change the landscape of opportunity for all, while bringing thoughtful, entertaining theatre performances to our patrons. As we nurture and cultivate new, emerging, and established artists, VIP Theatre seeks to provide performance and career building opportunities for the Marquette and Milwaukee communities while also providing role models of professional artists of color for our students and alumni.
MKE Entrepreneur Incubation Program
Team lead: Michelle Barbeyto
The MKE Entrepreneur Incubation Program (EIP) will offer Marquette students that come from low-income, first-generation, or underrepresented backgrounds entrepreneurial skills to host pop-up events through a community-minded lens. The events are designed to educate, inspire, and promote the work of students from a sustainable and ethical perspective. The goal is for students to have a direct impact in the Milwaukee community and help them execute their vision for transformable change within their communities while gaining valuable skills to continue to use in the future. In creating these events it will be an opportunity for them to give back to their community, cross collaborate with students from different departments and create valuable connections.
Community Experts in the Classroom: Enacting Humanistic Pedagogy in a Carceral Context
Team lead: Marisola Xhelili Ciaccio
In order to create immersive community pedagogy at Marquette, this project aims to create blended courses where Marquette undergraduates and currently/formerly incarcerated individuals can study the topics of justice, freedom, and identity together. These courses will invite community experts affected by incarceration to serve as co-instructors in the creation and implementation of blended courses, with the goals of offering more opportunities to the formerly incarcerated, increasing diverse leadership representation, and utilizing personal experience in the carceral system as a valuable knowledge base for students.
Project Water Internship Program
Team lead: Krassimira Hristova
The Project Water Internship Program will expand the outreach capacity of Project Water to address the critical needs of both clean drinking water and surface water used for recreational opportunities in Milwaukee’s urban environment. Marquette undergraduate students will be challenged to develop cutting edge water filtration techniques and work with high school students to conduct innovative research aiming to reduce contamination levels in our freshwater systems.
The Latinx Research Scholars Program
Team lead: Lisa Edwards
The Marquette University Latinx Research Scholars Program (LRSP) is an innovative program designed to provide undergraduate students with a mentored experience in community-engaged research within the Milwaukee Latinx community. A cohort of undergraduate students will receive mentorship, training, professional development and research opportunities with MU faculty, graduate students and community agencies.
Smart Clothing and High-Performance Building Materials: A Novel Use of Natural Pollen Grains
Team lead: Chieu Tran
The main objective of this project is to develop a novel and green method of synthesizing high-performance composites using natural and sustainable biopolymers, including cellulose, keratin from wool, and natural pollen grains. The composites obtained will have a unique set of properties: biocomptibility, hemostasis, wound healing, antibacterial, anti-inflammation, controlled delivery of drugs, and the ability to regulate the environment (i.e. cool down the hot environment). These properties will enable them to be used for a variety of applications, including smart textiles.
NO Studios/Marquette University - Emerging Filmmaker Fellowship
Team lead: Dave Murphy
In order to foster a thriving filmmaking community at Marquette University and in the Greater Milwaukee area, NO Studios and Marquette University will launch an Emerging Filmmaker Fellowship program (aka, "Artist in Residence" program) designed to generate two films/web-based series annually and support a robust creative community that encourages collaboration, networking, resource sharing, peer-to-peer feedback, and professional development education.
Promoting Health Equity through a Community of Public Health Research Scholars
Team lead: John Mantsch
The project will complement the educational efforts to be established by promoting collaborative scholarship across disciplines among Marquette faculty, students and nonacademic partners in the areas on public health and global health, particularly those related to health equity and developing infrastructure that supports health equity-related research both within Marquette community and in partnership with the MCW.
The Marquette Irenaeus Project
Team lead: Christopher J. Krall, S.J.
The Marquette Irenaeus Project (MIP) is an interdisciplinary research initiative aimed at cultivating prayer practices from the Christian tradition in the everyday lives of students, faculty, and staff on campus, with the expansion in a second phase to the larger community (for example, parishes, prisons, homeless shelters, and veterans' groups).
"Stop the Bleed" in the Milwaukee Community
Team lead: Michelle Horng
"Stop the Bleed" is a national call-to-action campaign with the purpose of better preparing the public to save lives by stopping life-threatening bleeding. The larger vision of the "Stop the Bleed" campaign is to have bleeding control kits as widely available in the community as public AEDs are today. Our project will equip 4 local organizations with resources and training to respond to bleeding emergencies within their location and surrounding neighborhoods.
Artist Travelers: Artist Journeys Mapping Prototype for Interactive & Virtual Reality Exhibits With a Mobile App
Team lead: Eugenia Afinoguenova
Between September 2020 and January 2021, Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) will be hosting an exhibition, dedicated to American artists who traveled to Spain and were influenced by its culture, landscape, public museums, and private art collections. Dr. Afinoguénova will develop a digital exhibit with an app and a website deriving from her current Spanish Travelers project - a special version that will be called "Artist Travelers."
High Power Density and High Efficiency Level 2 Electric Vehicle Charger with Wide Band Gap Devices
Team lead: Nathan Weise
From generation to consumption, approximately fifty percent of the generated electricity in the United States travels through power electronics. It is predicted that this figure will rise to 80 percent by the year 2030, highlighting the significant need to increase the efficiency while decreasing the cost of electrical energy conversion. Recent advancements in silicon carbide and gallium nitride materials have provided a key component to increasing efficiency but they have not been fully utilized. The goal of this project is to research a new topology for level two on-board electric vehicle chargers that utilizes wide band gap semiconductors. Reducing the volume and weight while simultaneously increasing efficiency of the charger is absolutely key for on-board transportation applications. Leveraging a new topology and new wide bandgap devices will allow for state of the art decreases in volume and weight and increase in efficiency.
Antibiotic Resistance Profiles in Wisconsin Environmental Escherichia coli Isolates: Correlation with and Future Predictor of Antibiotic Resistance in Clinical Escherichia coli Isolates
Team lead: Erik Munson
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria increase the risk of morbidity and mortality to hospitalized patients. An antibiotic resistance surveillance program has recently been established in Wisconsin. A reference laboratory at Marquette University tests clinical isolates submitted by 20 hospital microbiology laboratories across the state using a standardized protocol. Significant differences have been noted in certain regions of the state with respect to commonly-prescribed antibiotics. Environmental sources such as rivers, lakes, or other waterways are potential reservoirs of antibiotic resistance. Using Escherichia coli as an indicator organism, we hypothesize that resistance profiles of E. coli derived from environmental sources in Wisconsin either correlate with clinical E. coli resistance profiles within given geographic regions or predict future E. coli resistance patterns in clinical isolates. Data derived from this project will contribute to clinical practice across Wisconsin.
La Tribuna Water Distribution System
Team lead: Kassie Paul
The Marquette chapter of Engineers Without Borders (MU-EWB) is partnering with the community of La Tribuna in Joyabaj, Guatemala. This community lacks a reliable water source and receives unsanitary river water via water truck once per week. Because of this, approximately fifteen cases of gastrointestinal illnesses are reported per week. This is a pressing issue that billions face daily in our global community, and the student-led MU-EWB team is working to develop effective solutions. This summer, the MU-EWB team will complete the design and implementation of a chlorinated water distribution system. This system will provide clean drinking water directly to each home in the community. The team of students, faculty, and professional mentors are passionately executing the planning, design, and implementation of this project.
Use of Immersive Technology to Increase Student Self-Efficacy During Study Abroad
Team lead: Theresa Schnable
Study abroad experiences for students are excellent opportunities to broaden learning and celebrate culture. The normal stress produced when exposed to a new situation in study abroad experiences can be beneficial for growth and skill acquisition. However, with a lack of coping tools or diagnosed anxiety disorders, this otherwise normal stress can impede learning or cause lingering negative feelings. In response to an identified need for improving nursing student coping skills and self-efficacy in stressful new situations, we propose to develop and test strategies rooted in simulation by using immersive or virtual reality (VR) technology to decrease student anxiety and its negative effects in study abroad programs. Through an interdisciplinary collaboration of nursing, engineering, international education, and counseling staff and faculty, we will use a novel approach to better prepare students who are studying abroad with reflection and coping techniques for the stressful situations they may encounter.
Evidence to Excel (E2E): A Process for Knowledge Translation in Physical Rehabilitation after Stroke
Team lead: Sheila Schindler-Ivens
Evidence to Excel (E2E) is a systematic, guided process to help rehabilitation professionals increase use of the best available research evidence for clinical decision making in stroke rehabilitation. Knowledge translation in stroke rehabilitation is challenging because a broad research base has led to numerous treatment recommendations, which can involve complex interventions. Thus, it is hard for clinicians to provide evidence based care to maximize recovery. Marquette and collaborating institutions will pilot E2E in the Stroke Rehabilitation Center of Southeastern Wisconsin to help clinicians improve the care they deliver and help stroke survivors maximize recovery.
Interdisciplinary Autism Initiative
Team lead: Amy Van Hecke
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a lifelong neurodevelopmental difference or condition, affecting approximately 1 in 45 individuals. Autistic* people experience challenges in socialization, communication, repetitive behaviors, and sensory processing. These challenges occur across the lifespan and impact multiple domains of functioning. Current systems for ASD care and research are often fragmented and fail to reach those in underserved urban areas. The Marquette Interdisciplinary Autism Initiative (IAI) will accomplish this goal via four divisions: (1) Research, (2) Clinical Services, (3) Education, and (4) Community Outreach. Funding from the Explorer Challenge is being requested to support one year of crucial planning to structure the Initiative, which will involve faculty and students in four colleges. This interdisciplinary unit, which has both clinical service and research deliverables, is so innovative that a model for its structure at Marquette does not yet exist. What is needed now is support for all involved stakeholders to have a voice and impact on its development. Further, the support for one year of planning this innovative model will pay crucial dividends both in the health of our community members affected by ASD, as well as Marquette’s standing in the autism world, while also providing a model for future such innovative, interdisciplinary initiatives.
Mathematical Modeling Experiences for Students and Future Teachers
Team lead: Hyunyi Jung
This project will support the exploration of the mathematical modeling learning progress of students and future teachers during both an innovative summer camp and after-school program. Both students and future teachers will engage with 21st century skills through hands-on activities that connect mathematics with other disciplines and society.Three goals will be achieved through this project: 1) foster 6-8th grade students’ learning of mathematical connections to the world; 2) develop future teachers’ knowledge of teaching mathematics as they learn and coteach mathematical modeling to the students; and 3) provide research experiences for Marquette students using the data collected from the program. The collected data will be used to design the framework of students’ and future teachers’ learning progress through mathematical modeling, which will inform future programs that simultaneously develop the knowledge of students and teachers.
Outreach to Improve Mobility for Underserved People with Disabilities in the Marquette Community
Team lead: Jacob R. Rammer
Children and adults with orthopaedic disabilities often have lower mobility and activity participation than their peers, and the severe health disparities in MU’s community make specialty care unobtainable for many. Recent global research by our group has identified technologies available to track important indicators of health and wellness, using gait analysis in the lab and mobility monitoring in the home and community. The objective of this project is to serve people with disabilities in Marquette’s community by (1) Partnering with Broadscope Disability Services, (2) Evaluating individuals using novel and effective technology at MU, providing valuable information to their caregivers, and (3) Promoting health and wellness to specifically address community health needs, while creating a sustainable program through collaborative extramural research funding. MU’s Explorer Challenge can launch this effort and lead it to sustainability. The project will have a lasting impact on the lives of many people in need within Marquette’s community.
Develop Self-Healing Concrete
Team lead: Baolin Wan
Hardened concrete may crack due to external applied loads, shrinkage of concrete itself, freeze/thaw action, and chemical reactions within the concrete. Cracks may lead to leakage problems or ingress of deleterious materials, causing deterioration of the concrete matrix or corrosion of embedded steel reinforcement. In this project, a self-healing concrete will be developed by adding tiny capsules in which are filled with adhesives. Once the cracks occur, the capsule breaks to release the adhesive to heal the concrete.
Marquette University Blockchain Lab
Team lead: Clayton Boehm
The Marquette Blockchain Lab is a virtual, interdisciplinary "laboratory," that facilitates education and innovation in the blockchain space. We work diligently to support Marquette University students, alumni, and blockchain enthusiasts by hosting a range of events and programs throughout the year. Our collective goal is to contribute to the advancement of knowledge and implementation of distributed ledger solutions in the hope of eliminating waste and fraud and potentially solving a host of socio-economic problems globally.
Positive Thinking Training Intervention for First Generation Middle Eastern Immigrants: Assessing Critical Parameters
Team lead: Abir K. Bekhet
The number of immigrants from the Middle East (ME) has grown more than seven-fold, reaching 1.5 million in 2000. First generation migrants are at an increased risk of mental illness, especially depression. Positive thinking is a cognitive process that helps individuals to deal with problems and has been suggested as a useful strategy for coping with adversity, including depression. First generation ME immigrants could benefit from a positive thinking training (PTT) intervention to help them cope with depression and different stressors.
Gendered Disabilities and Milwaukee Muslim Immigrants
Team lead: Enaya Othman
This project focuses on cultural constructions of disability among immigrant Muslim populations of Greater Milwaukee and the social implications of these constructions for females who have a disability (learning, physical, medical, psychiatric, and/or speech/language) or females who have disabled family members. Through surveys and interviews, gendered disability will be made visible, with the goal of raising awareness within target communities. A digital archive will be a safe space for stakeholders to interact and a data source for researchers and health professionals.
BioDiscovery Confocal Imaging Core
Team lead: John Mantsch
The ability to study biology at the subcellular level is vital for life sciences research and has led to critical advances in understanding cell function. Confocal microscopy is a key bioimaging platform, but its resolving power is limited. With recent advances, confocal microscopy can now generate ultra-high resolution images of subcellular structures. Access to next-generation imaging technology is needed in order for Marquette scientists to remain at the cutting edge of research and represents an opportunity for Marquette to lead the way in biodiscovery. We propose to establish a BioDiscovery Confocal Imaging Core with the purchase of a state-of-the-art microscope that can capture images at twice the resolution of older platforms. The Core, which will house the most advanced confocal imaging technology in the region, will support >16 scientists on campus and provide researchers with a distinct advantage when pursuing grant funding and addressing critical topics in biodiscovery.
Environmental Sustainability: Increasing Underrepresented Student Research in the Field of Environmental Engineering
Team lead: Kyana Young
Drinking water quality has become a challenging compliance concern in cities across the nation, as emerging contaminants in drinking water are detected at limits previously not measurable. Numerous Wisconsin organizations are urging a commitment to conduct research and implement solutions to preempt a looming local crisis. In response to the need for drinking water research, and the goals detailed in Marquette University's Strategic Plan, the Environmental Sustainability program aims to train high school students to conduct innovative research to reduce drinking water contamination levels. These students are historically underrepresented in the field of environmental engineering and live in communities that are disproportionately affected by environmental and public health problems. In addition to raising drinking water quality awareness, the high school program will create a robust pipeline of students pursuing water technical careers by affording them the opportunity to intern at the Global Water Center.
Improving service to the Hispanic community through pronunciation training of Marquette students
Team lead: Jeffrey Berry
A large number of Marquette undergraduate and graduate students study Spanish as a second language (L2). While all these students gain proficiency, their spoken Spanish typically is hindered by a marked English "accent" that reinforces perceived socio-cultural barriers, undermining communication and engagement with Spanish-speaking communities. Research in the MU Speech & Swallowing Lab has demonstrated that digitally modified auditory feedback of an individual's own speech can be used to elicit subtle changes in tongue, lip, and jaw movements that affect pronunciation. This line of research has yet to be applied to non-native pronunciation teaching. Such an application would bolster the development of innovative pronunciation teaching tools that would reduce the perceived non-nativeness of L2 speakers of Spanish and, as a result, improve their social and professional interactions with the Hispanic community, aligning with MU's goal of becoming a Hispanic-serving institution. The proposed seed project will further the analysis of acoustic data we have already collected to characterize key pronunciation differences between native speakers and L2 learners of Spanish. Additionally, we will complete a pilot study that uses the results of this acoustic analysis to evaluate a prototype, technology-based program for pronunciation teaching of MU students.
Milwaukee Trauma Outcomes Project (MTOP)
Team lead: Lucas Torres
The Milwaukee Trauma Outcomes Project (MTOP) seeks to advance research and community prevention efforts pertaining to trauma and the development of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), particularly among racial and ethnic minorities living in Milwaukee. MTOP includes interdisciplinary scholars partnering to further understand the social and biological factors that contribute to PTSD. The structural inequities and increased exposure to traumatic experiences, including community violence and racial/ethnic discrimination, contribute to racial/ethnic health disparities. Still, our understanding is limited regarding how societal, environmental, cultural, and biological factors interact to cause mental health problems. Recent events have put Milwaukee at the epicenter of a local and national discourse regarding the role of civil unrest, violence, racial/ethnic discrimination, and health. The current proposal seeks to initiate an interdisciplinary research program that examines cumulative stress burden and the mechanisms that contribute to PTSD among racial/ethnic minority individuals. The MTOP research group includes scholars from vastly different disciplines that would not otherwise be able to bring their expertise together in such a collaborative effort and tackle such complex issues.
MU Innovation Garden
Team lead: Aidan Flanagan
The Innovation Garden is an on-campus urban agriculture project that would provide unique, high-impact learning experiences and meaningful opportunities related to food and wellness, environmental management and sustainability, community engagement and development, and more. At least 18 of MU's 22 President Advisory Team peer institutions have some version of a campus garden, as do UW-Milwaukee and UW-Madison, but typically their primary function is merely growing produce. The Innovation Garden would exceed that function by emphasizing education, research, campus/community engagement, and spirituality. With planning and support, the garden would be relatively simple to implement and manage, and it would help Marquette advance its mission, inspire innovation, and achieve its strategic goals.
The Grocery Challenge
Team lead: Rana Altenburg
In January 2017, President Lovell announced the Grocery Challenge. The goal of the Grocery Challenge is to generate innovative, affordable, and sustainable models to bring fresh foods to Marquette University and the Near West Side and pilot a variety of ideas to determine the appropriate mix of fresh food retail options. We want grocery options that are inclusive to everyone who calls the Near West Side home – and change the narrative around "grocery". To date, 183 Marquette students, Faculty, staff, and community members have been part of the Grocery Challenge and groups are focusing on: food pantry for students, a student run grocery store, small foot print store, leveraging existing retail spaces in the Near West Side, farmers market, mobile/delivery, and health literacy programs. The funds from the Strategic Innovation Fund will be used to help seed the top two ideas from those mentioned above following the final pitches in April 2017.
The Philosophy Lab
Team lead: Corinne Bloch-Mullins
Philosophical work is traditionally done from the armchair. While many philosophers draw on insight from the empirical sciences, traditional philosophy makes no room for them to formulate empirically testable hypotheses and put them to a direct test against reality. The Philosophy Lab project sharply departs from this tradition. It sets out to establish a novel, interdisciplinary research program in experimental philosophy at Marquette, through collaboration between Dr. Bloch-Mullins (philosophy) and Dr. Kristy Nielson (psychology). This will be achieved by conducting a pilot study into the nature of concepts, developing original protocols that would serve as exemplars for further interdisciplinary studies of cognition (broadly construed), and holding workshops in which Faculty and graduate students in philosophy will have the opportunity to explore the potential benefits of experimental philosophy methods for their own projects.
Science, Policy, and Innovation for Clean Water Protection in the Dairy State
Team lead: Krassimira Hristova
The overarching purpose of the proposed program is to form a foundational nucleus of expertise for exploring, analyzing, and developing solutions to water challenges centered in Marquette's facility at the Global Water Center. Specifically, we will solidify collaborative relationships through extending research on water quality in Kewaunee County to include additional forms of social/political analysis and engineering solutions. Kewaunee presents a critical case for examining the science and politics of water quality due to the recent confluence of particularly vulnerable geology, expanding agricultural industry, and activist pressure. This project will establish a functioning citizen driven surface water quality monitoring program for testing and analysis water parameters associated with agricultural consolidation and manure practices. At the same time, will explore social and political dimensions of contamination problems and potential solutions in the Kewaunee County community. To offer solution to the problem of water contamination from manure runoff, we will develop and test new technology for manure volume reduction and pathogen elimination that has potential to address both water quality and quality of life concerns within the community, in the region, and nationally. This unique cross-college collaborative initiative will position us well for obtaining federal, state, and industry funding in the arena of environmental protection and sustain the program in the future.
Rescuing At-Risk Toddlers and Preschoolers from Abuse and Neglect
Team lead: Robert Fox
Each year in the U.S., 700,000 children are victims of abuse and neglect, and 1,500 die as a direct result. Sadly, most are younger than 5-years-old. The Behavior Clinic, a joint partnership between Marquette and Penfield Children’s Center since 2003, has developed and tested an innovative treatment program for preventing abuse and neglect in very young children living in poverty. Our strategy involves going into the homes of central-city children to teach, guide and encourage parents and other caregivers to use effective mental health principles and strategies to reduce significant behavioral and emotional problems in their very young children, before resorting to harsh punishment that may lead to physical abuse and neglect. We carefully evaluated the efficacy of this new early intervention program through rigorous, randomized controlled trials (RCT) conducted in the community with a diverse population of families living below the federal poverty level. In November 2015, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) National Registry of Evidence Based Programs and Practices (NREPP) positively reviewed this cutting-edge program, titled Early Pathways (EP), for effectively addressing serious behavioral problems of at-risk young children. This innovation proposal will develop and test a new EP Training Program for professionals to learn and implement this nationally-recognized program so more at-risk children can realize brighter futures.
Bronzeville
Team lead: Karen Slattery
This project explores the social cost of demolishing parts of Milwaukee’s African-American neighborhood, now referred to as "Bronzeville," in the mid-20th century for purposes of urban renewal and freeway construction. The project consists of a documentary film based, in part, on two original studies now underway. The target audience will be citizens of Milwaukee, including middle- and high school students, as well as Marquette University students. The documentary follows the development of a play, commissioned by Milwaukee’s First Stage theater company, which is scheduled to debut in 2017. The film will capture the writing and production of the play, which, in turn, serves as the impetus for the documentary’s examination of the neighborhood’s history and an exploration the idea of community. The documentary gives voice to some of the city’s older African Americans who lived in Bronzeville in its heyday and affords them the opportunity to tell their story. The documentary is grounded in original scholarship and advances my research trajectory in an innovative way (more on that below). The first related study involves oral histories of African Americans who grew up in Bronzeville, while the second involves a textual analysis of news coverage to identify the narrative told by politicians and the press about the need to get rid of "urban blight" and to construct a network of freeways. An effort will also be made to identify the counter narrative, if there was one, about the destruction of the social fabric created by African-Americans in a city where segregation was enforced by racial covenants, redlining and "steering" of African Americans into the near north side of Milwaukee.
Development and Marketing of Fluorescent Microscopy Intensity Standards
Team lead: Pinfen Yang
Fluorescence microscopy is a powerful tool for medical diagnosis and research. Typically, it is used to visualize molecules that are tagged to light-emitting labels. Despite broad applications and remarkable breakthroughs, it remains challenging to convert labels’ light intensity into the molecule number, a often desirable matrix. We envision that a fluorescent standard imaged together with objects of interest will make quantification much easier, akin to the standards routinely used in biochemical analyses. Taking advantage of a ruler-like structure in flagella, we have created a prototype standard that contains a precise number of fluorescent molecules per unit length and demonstrated its utility as fluorescence standards. This project seeks supports for students to create and market a suite of similar standards for diverse applications. Participants will gain a wide range of experiences, including biotechnology, research and development, patent application and commercialization.
Applications of adult human stem cells from dental pulp
Team lead: Doug Lobner
There is great promise in the use of stem cells for the treatment of multiple diseases. However, the use of human embryonic stem cells has considerable ethical concerns. A population of adult stem cells has recently been purified from human dental pulp that have attractive properties. The proposed studies involve the use of these cells and involve a collaboration between Dr. Doug Lobner in Biomedical Sciences and Dr. Lobat Tayebi in the Dental School. Dr. Lobner has expertise in the isolation, culturing, and derivatization of dental pulp stem cells. Dr. Lobat Tayebi is an expert in the generation and use of biomaterials, particularly through the use of 3D printing. Using 3D printing to generate biomaterials is also an exciting and developing field for medical and dental applications. Of particular interest is the combined use of 3D printing and stem cells to generate new tissue, or potentially one day entire new organs. The two investigators have complimentary experience and expertise. Dr. Lobner has already been culturing and studying human dental pulp stem cells and Dr. Tayebi has biomaterial applications that require the use of stem cells. The goal of this proposal is not only to perform specific joint experiments, but also begin a collaboration that will lead to extramural grant proposals and build core expertise and facilities for the study of adult stem cells and 3D printing as a resource for other faculty at Marquette University. Other benefits of the studies involve the potential commercialization of the technology developed and the involvement of large numbers of students in cutting edge research.
On-Site Screening of Wastewater and Freshwater for Micropollutants Using a Sensor-Based Detection System
Team lead: Fabien Josse
This project will further the strategic goal of Research in Action even as it increases Marquette University’s involvement with the Global Water Center. A smart chemical sensor system will be developed for on-site detection of low-concentration contaminants ("micropollutants") in wastewater and public waterways. The project will target specific pollutants of concern for human health and the environment, e.g., the widely used antibiotics triclocarban and triclosan. The full list of target pollutants will be determined in close collaboration with the Water Quality Center at Marquette U. This project will leverage our existing sensor platform, developed with the support of Chevron Corp., which has shown excellent performance in direct detection of benzene and other similar low-level water contaminants. Using novel sensor coatings and advanced signal processing, the smart sensor system will be designed and optimized for the concurrent detection of multiple micropollutants of interest. Industrial partners involved with the Global Water Center will be sought for further development and commercialization of this system.
Examining Deficits of Sensorimotor Learning and Performance after Concussion in the Student Athlete
Team lead: Robert Scheidt
Sport-related concussion causes deficits of memory and attention that can impair motor learning and lead to persistent cognitive and sensorimotor performance deficits. Despite sparse supporting evidence, physical and cognitive rest remains the cornerstone of concussion management. This 3-year project seeks to understand how deficits of memory and attention resolve during recovery from concussion. We will test how different amounts of rest and low-risk activity influence the rate of recovery using standard neuropsychological and balance tests in addition to novel lab-based procedures that quantify how memories from past actions combine to guide future motor performance. This multi-institutional and cross-campus collaborative project is a first step toward optimizing the therapeutic application of rest and low-risk activity, one that minimizes persistent performance deficits and maximizes the rate and extent of recovery. This project advances the mission of Marquette University by involving faculty, staff and students in the pursuit of academic excellence for human well-being through research in action.
Latina/o Well-Being Research Initiative (LWRI)
Team lead: Lucas Torres
The Latina/o Well-Being Research Initiative (LWRI) seeks to advance impactful, community-based scholarship about Latina/os living in Milwaukee. A major objective is to bridge and forge academic-community partnerships that serve to reduce health disparities and promote well-being among Latina/os. The work by LWRI addresses several challenges including marked health and academic disparities for Latina/os; limited community resources that focus on scholarship; and a lack of infrastructure for establishing sustainable and mutually beneficial academic-community research collaborations. The long-term objective of LWRI is to establish a sustainable center or institute that bridges the gap between scholars and community constituents in order to advance scientific knowledge about Latina/o well-being with real-world practicality. The Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) would position LWRI to move towards these longer-term goals by accomplishing critical intermediary steps. As such, the current SIF proposal is focused on two goals: 1) to establish the infrastructure necessary to maintain LWRI, and 2) to develop and advance community-based research regarding Latina/o health and well-being.
MarquetteMUnchMates
Team lead: Benjamin Zellmer
There are two problems on Marquette’s campus that MarquetteMUnchMates aims to resolve. The first is a failure to realize the full potential and effect of the student community on campus. The 2015 Climate Study revealed that 24% of Marquette students (nearly 1 in 4) seriously considered leaving Marquette because they did not feel like they belonged. The second problem is the failure to maximize the use of Guest Swipes on the Meal Plan. Each student on the Meal Plan has fifteen Guest Swipes to use each semester. While some students use the majority of their Guest Swipes, there are also students who do not use most or any of their Guest Swipes. MarquetteMUnchMates aims to resolve these two problems through one simple program that would provide an opportunity for underclassmen on the Meal Plan to request a meal with a campus engaged upperclassman, faculty member, or Jesuit through an online website and app. This idea reflects the recently added theme of inclusion the University has taken upon itself. The goal of MUnchMates is a campus-wide feeling of inclusion among every person associated with the University from students to faculty and staff to the Jesuits.
Statistical Consulting and Training Center
Team lead: Naveen K. Bansal
The Statistical Consulting and Training Center (SCTC) would provide complete statistical services and statistical expertise to the students, industrial community, and the researchers of non-statistical fields. Its main purpose will be to broaden the collaboration between the statistical and non-statistical researchers, and to create a statistical hub for private sectors who may seek expert opinion on modern statistical analysis tools. For the statistical services, the center will work with the clients on design of experiments, perform statistical analyses once the data is collected, and produce reports interpreting the statistical results. In addition, it will conduct lecture series on cutting edge statistical tools for the private sectors and for the students and faculty members of the Marquette University. Benefits of creating the center include increased collaboration between statisticians and non-statisticians, students support for the statistics students, and increased visibility of the Marquette University within the local business community as a place of statistical experts and students recruits. The proposed project supports the university’s strategic goals of research in action and enhancement of organizational effectiveness.
Escalation: Raising the college students’ awareness of warning signs of abusive relationships
Team lead: Abir K. Bekhet
Abusive relationships (AR) are highly prevalent in our society. Statistics show that 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men will be in AR in their lifetime. According to the CDC, the highest risk group for this violence are those aged 18-24 years old 1, 2 57% of college students reported having difficulty in identifying relationship violence, while 58% reported not knowing what to do to help someone who is dealing with AR1. This current research is an initial step "pilot testing" with a limited number of students to test the effectiveness of the "escalation" workshop in raising the college students’ awareness regarding the warning signs of AR. The long term goal is to refine the workshop, if needed, to reach and impact all students at Marquette and beyond.
Pilot Program for Creation of Center for Assistive Technologies
Team lead: Jay Goldberg
The proposed project will enhance design education at MU by continuing existing and adding new collaborations to create and provide assistive technologies for people with disabilities. Goal #1: Enhance the design education of MU undergraduate engineering students through 1) problem identification and needs finding activities, 2) interaction with clients, and 3) commercialization activities, through assistive technology projects involving the design and testing of custom devices for people with disabilities. Goal #2: Disseminate knowledge of these new technologies and make them accessible to people with disabilities, by 1) submitting them to an online database accessible to people with disabilities, and 2) providing resources for commercialization. Goal #3: Design and plan for a new Center for Assistive Technologies that will expand and formalize the activities described in the proposed project to include production capabilities.
A Sanctuary for MUsic
Team lead: Kevyn Schwab
A Sanctuary for MUsic aims to establish a space where student musicians at Marquette can practice their art. The Sanctuary will allow the student organization MUsic to fulfill its mission of facilitating the networking and collaboration of Marquette student musicians. The Sanctuary will be an environment in which student musicians may thrive, providing essential resources for creating and sharing music – something which has yet to be established at Marquette. Student musicians are an underrepresented and unaccommodated group, and A Sanctuary for MUsic would change that.
MU4Gold Scholars – a pilot program
Team lead: Rosemary Stuart
The MU4Gold Scholars program seeks to brand research excellence as a cultural expectation of a Marquette undergraduate experience. Marquette’s integrated research and teaching missions afford our undergraduates access to transformative educational opportunities and are critical for future career paths. This notable feature of a Marquette education is not sufficiently promoted in our current enrollment strategies. We propose to establish a MU4Gold Scholars program to enhance the recruitment and yield of academically superior high school applicants. This pilot program represents a step towards increasing opportunities for and the visibility of strong undergraduate research on campus.
Engaging Muslims, Countering Islamophobia: Islam in America Immersion— Detroit
Team lead: Louise Cainkar
Each Spring semester up to 8 Marquette students will participate in a high impact 6 day interfaith service and learning trip to Dearborn and Hamtramck, Michigan, home to the largest concentrations of Muslims and mosques in the U.S. In this transformative community engagement project, students will learn about the significant religious, social, cultural, economic, architectural, and political contributions of Muslims to these Detroit area communities by visiting a range of mosques [old and new, Sunni and Shi’a], meeting with scholars, religious leaders, activists, and elected officials, and completing a day of service in partnership with a local Muslim organization [Michigan Muslim Community Council or the Dream of Detroit Project]. Through these encounters students will learn about Islam, American Muslim history, and Muslim community experiences of acceptance and resistance; they will discuss contested issues like mosque construction/expansion and Syrian refugees with persons affected by these challenges, and directly experience the diversity of Muslims through personal contact and varied cuisines brought to the area from the Arab World and South Asia. Personal transformation will be enhanced by nightly guided Ignatian reflection sessions led by Dr. Cainkar. To foster broader learning, a more inclusive environment, and to counter Islamophobia, upon return students will convey their knowledge and experiences at an intra-university forum sponsored by the Center for Peacemaking and the Center for Intercultural Engagement and at a venue in the Milwaukee Muslim community. Going forward, students will be encouraged to take active roles in countering Islamophobia wherever it occurs, at the university, in Milwaukee, and in their life’s destinations. The immersion trip will be organized and led by Dr. Louise Cainkar of the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences, an expert on American Muslims, and president of the Arab American Studies Association.
WATERMARKS: An Atlas of Water and the City of Milwaukee
Team lead: Susan Longhenry
Working with internationally renowned artist Mary Miss, and based in previously awarded space in Marquette University’s Global Water Center, the project team will implement an innovative city-wide public art project titled WATERMARKS: An Atlas of Water and the City of Milwaukee. Developed in collaboration with Marquette University and Milwaukee community stakeholders, WATERMARKS will make the intricately woven web of our reliance on water visible by mapping Milwaukee’s water story at the scale of the city. Beginning in the Inner Harbor, specific locations in the "atlas" will be identified by a series of "map pins" that range in scale from a 300’ industrial stack to a repurposed utility pole. Marquette University’s Haggerty Museum of Art will serve as the institutional home of this interdisciplinary community-based art project, which will raise water literacy through collaborative programs and projects activated by arts/science/engineer/citizen teams from multiple universities, water-related industries, and governmental organizations.
Engendering Dignity in Philosophy (EDIP)
Team lead: Drew Dumaine
Engendering Dignity in Philosophy (EDIP) is a classroom based program that empowers women of varied and seemingly disparate backgrounds through critical thinking and intellectual collaboration. It provides Marquette professors, graduate students, and undergraduate students the opportunity to teach and study with women in local prisons, domestic violence resource centers, and other populations that have little exposure to each-other in order to strengthen community bonds and develop shared understandings and solutions to issues of social justice. At present, we are running a HOPR course entitled ‘Gender and Narratives of Freedom’ that brings together MU undergraduates and women from the Milwaukee Women’s Correctional Center (MWCC) to explore social justice through the lens of gender and freedom. The course has already proven such immeasurable benefit to all involved stakeholders--faculty, graduate, undergraduate students, and MWCC women--that we are seeking to make it (and other courses like it) a regular part of the Marquette honors curriculum. Given the innovative nature and methodology of the program and its potential to advance Marquette’s involvement in community development and social justice, we request support from Marquette’s Innovation Fund.
Establishing a Rice Cultivation Business Model in the Milwaukee Area
Team lead: Michael Schläppi
Funds are requested to build and maintain experimental rice paddies at the Fondy Food Center (FCC) farm that will serve as a model for establishing sustainable rice cultivation businesses in the Milwaukee area. The paddies will serve two purposes: to allow continuous undergraduate student centric research to identify rice varieties best suitable for cultivation in a cold climate; and to serve as a resource for commercial rice farming to generate revenues through rice sales and equipment leasing and workshop programs that will be continuously reinvested into student research and training. During the three years of grant duration, we will build two sophisticated half-acre paddies on FCC farm land that can generate up to 8,000 lb of paddy rice, purchase planting, harvesting, threshing, and hulling equipment, and develop interdisciplinary research opportunities for student interns. After three years, we will produce and sell rice on a regular basis, offer training workshops to prospective rice farmers, and lease our equipment to those farmers to cover costs for repair and maintenance as part of our business model.
Using an iPad application to prepare for Imaging
Team lead: Norah Johnson
At present, there is no application (app) based medical procedure preparation strategy in place nationwide for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The present project involves retrospectively tracking the clinical/hospital use and of our already developed iPad app intended to help persons with ASD safely complete medical imaging. The iPad application delivers a social script of pictures and words that foreshadow a novel experience and help the person know what to expect and how to react during a procedure. We already tested the iPad application with 32 parent/child dyads and found that it was associated with lowered parent and child anxiety, shortened procedure length, and reduction in the number of challenging child behaviors (published in Journal of Pediatric Nursing & Journal of Radiology Nursing). With the established feasibility and efficacy, the app is now available for download at the Marquette Apple Store (individual apps for x-ray, nuclear medicine, MRI, CAT scan). The purpose of this study is to evaluate the use, fidelity of use, and barriers to use of the app. The app is being considered for a patent by Marquette University Office of Innovation at this time given the lack of such an app in the marketplace at this time.
MU Cell Sorting Facility
Team lead: SuJean Choi
Whether the focus is cancer or schizophrenia, treating disease requires understanding pathology at the cellular level. Toward this goal, we seek to establish a next-generation cell-sorting facility that will feature technology that better enables the isolation of cells from a complex environment (e.g., large tissue sample). Current efforts to identify the molecular causes of human disease often involve the processing of heterogeneous tissue samples in which many of the cells are healthy. The presence of healthy cells obscures the detection of pathological events that may be present in only a percentage of cells in a sample. The cell-sorting facility will address this obstacle by permitting the isolation of cells of interest, as described below. By enabling MU scientists to utilize a vastly more sensitive approach to study disease and unmask novel therapeutic targets, the goal is that the Center will be an important step towards maximizing both the revenue potential of existing research programs (i.e., by increasing extramural grant funding and tech-transfer opportunities) and the potential societal impact of ongoing research activities (i.e., the identification of novel causes of human disease leading to highly innovative treatment approaches).
The Virtual Classroom Project
Team lead: Nicholas La Joie
The Virtual Classroom project aims to leverage new technologies in 3D VR video by building a live streaming 3D VR application for smart phones and connecting students to the virtual classroom using a 360 degree camera that would act as a "virtual reality web cam", sending fully explorable live video from the remote classroom to the students on the far end using mobile streaming 3D VR software.
SWE Beyond the University Boundaries: Forging Community Connections to Attract and Retain Underrepresented Engineers
Team lead: Karlie Hornberger
There is a "STEM Gap" in the US: far too few women and students of color are pursuing engineering. Even more troubling is the number of underrepresented students who declare STEM degrees and don’t finish. Marquette students will be the exception to this retention challenge. We propose deploying members of the MU Society of Women Engineers (SWE) as unique "near peer" mentors to middle school students, serving the dual purpose of guiding younger students to STEM fields and affirming the public identity of SWE members as engineers, giving them the confidence to finish their degree. Our cutting-edge "Mentor in the Field" model is a game-changing innovation that reaches out to all students, building the newest generation of diverse engineers and retaining those in training. Marquette’s location in a hub of water and energy innovation and a partnership with STEMhero, a local social enterprise that works with middle schools & water/energy providers across the US, will help scale this pilot.
Interfaith Initiative
Team lead: Mary Sue Callan-Farley
This initiative will increase interfaith awareness and convergence on campus to promote transformative relationships among members of campus and with city communities. Four students and two university advisors will attend the Interfaith Youth Core Leadership Institute on August 2016 in Chicago to explore models of university interfaith dialogue and strategies to develop interfaith leadership. During the institute Marquette participants will envision and design three components of a plan for interfaith action in the 2016-2017 academic year: Interfaith Day of Service; Interfaith Retreat; a process to recruit an interfaith leadership team. These efforts will strengthen interfaith understanding and cooperation and generate a student led interfaith group that will support interfaith work currently taking place on campus. This group will also help to build relationships through service and programming with local religious and interfaith institutions.
Matteo Ricci Global Scholar
Team lead: Terence Miller
Matteo Ricci was a 17th century Italian Jesuit who traveled to China and became a scholar and advisor to the emperor. He exemplified the vital intercultural competencies necessary to work across difference when he bridged Chinese and Western cultures and modeled Jesuit ideals. As such, he has been chosen as the namesake for this educational badge that will assist students in developing similar intercultural skills as they prepare to engage across difference in an increasingly diverse and global workforce. Likewise, Marquette has identified diversity, inclusion, and global citizenship as university tactics that correspond with the strategic themes and underpinning values of the university. Traditional stand-alone international opportunities and academic majors are no longer sufficient to prepare students for today’s interconnected global community. We propose implementing an interdisciplinary, evidence-based educational badge through the development of the Ricci Global Scholar program--a challenging academic program that cultivates global perspectives and demonstrates a student’s intercultural competencies. The Ricci Global Scholar badge would be integrated into a student’s pre-existing academic plan. This structure emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of today’s issues, spans the student’s Marquette career to allow for intercultural competencies to be developed and demonstrated, and can be achieved within the current mandate of 120-credit hours. This program will be ideal for students who aspire to be global citizens and want to demonstrate key global workforce skills to future employers.
Changing Teens' Responses to Precursors of Dating Violence: A Theater Intervention
Team lead: Kristin Haglund
Our vision is to establish an ongoing and sustainable partnership with the Milwaukee Public Theatre, Marquette University’s College of Nursing and Center for Peacemaking, and youth of Milwaukee’s near west and north neighborhoods to promote youth development and interpersonal peace by engaging in theatre-based, community-based participatory action research (CBPR) projects targeted at issues of violence. The aim of this partnership is to cultivate relationships as a foundation for CBPR projects that will generate community involvement and leadership, afford direct benefits to the participants and local community, address pressing social and health issues of violence and injury, and promote solidarity with vulnerable young people and communities in Milwaukee. This scalable initiative was intentionally designed small so that the successful components can easily be replicated across the city and country.
Ignatian Course Consultation Team (ICCT)
Team lead: Shaun Longstreet
The advancement of Marquette's mission is deeply dependent upon our students' encounter with faculty who understand and appropriate the Jesuit educational tradition. Often faculty members would like to retool their teaching practices and integrate Ignatian pedagogy into their courses, but do not have the knowledge to do so or easy access to faculty colleagues who can help them assess their courses through this lens. The Ignatian Course Consultation Team (ICCT) is a first-ever attempt at Marquette for creating interdisciplinary, faculty-run consulting groups whom any faculty member may access to help him/her assess the (a) overall pedagogical approach, and (b) Ignatian character and methodology of his/her courses. The model is loosely based on the Quaker tradition of "clearness committees," which call into service Friends who assist a fellow Quaker to solve a problem or make a decision. The ICCT works with faculty who are creating or redesigning syllabi with the goal of high-quality teaching and infusing Ignatian practice and/or philosophy into their courses.
The Center for Intercultural Engagement Book Loan Program
Team lead: Eva Powless-Martinez
The goal of the Textbook Loan Program is to aid students in their academic success. This will be done by providing them with the ability to borrow specific textbooks, free of charge, at the Center for Intercultural Engagement. The primary focus of this program will be to have at least one of each textbook necessary for Marquette University’s core curriculum courses. It is necessary to acknowledge that students feel as though textbook costs are overlooked by the university and staff. "According to the Pell Institute, 75 percent of students from families making $100,000 or more graduate within six years. For students from families making less than $30,000, that number is just 40 percent" (Allen ,2014). Students and their families already go to great lengths in order to fund a student’s college education. In most instances the cost of supplies, especially textbooks, is overlooked until the last moment. From the perspective of many educational institutions, textbooks are a given expense left for the student to fund, but more and more as depicted by personal student experiences, many are opting out of purchasing important texts due to cost.
Research Program of the Stroke Rehabilitation Center of Southeast Wisconsin
Team lead: Brian Schmit
This proposed project will develop a core research program for the emerging Stroke Rehabilitation Center of Southeast Wisconsin (SRC). The SCR is a multi-department, multi-institutional center aimed at developing stroke rehabilitation research, enhancing stroke education, improving clinical services and engaging the community. The current partners in the SRC include the Departments of Physical Therapy and Biomedical Engineering at Marquette University and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Medical College of Wisconsin. The proposed project aims to kick start the research program of the SRC, targeting the theme: Neuroimaging for Stroke Rehabilitation. This one-year catalyst project will establish key collaborations across departments and institutions through four innovative, high impact studies. Achievement of proposed milestones will provide the initial research for developing extramural grant proposals through the SRC, including an extramurally funded center grant on this topic (e.g. an RERC).
Public Marquette
Team lead: Andrew Terenzio
The purpose of the Public Marquette is to combat food deserts and their corresponding symptoms, especially those present in the Near West Side district that ourselves and our neighbors call home. This involves reconstructing the way in which we as a community think about our supply of food. Presenting a new business model for operating a grocery, we will offer fresh produce and essential items without the breadth of inventory associated with traditional supermarkets. Also diverging from tradition, the Public Marquette is a mobile grocery option designed to service multiple communities.
English Department Research Colloquium
Team lead: Melissa Ganz
The English Department Research Colloquium seeks to foster intellectual dialogue within the English department as well as across the University by providing a forum for faculty to present and discuss new research in English studies. The colloquium will build upon this year’s successful Faculty Research Lunch Talk series, which has hosted six talks to date and will host one more talk later this semester. The topics are wide-ranging and interdisciplinary in focus, and invite participation by both graduate and undergraduate students as well as faculty from across the schools and departments at Marquette. In particular, we aim to enhance community among faculty and students in English, while fostering exchanges with colleagues working in fields such as History, Philosophy, Theology, Foreign Languages, and Sociology as well as Communication, Law, and the Health Sciences
Fostering 21st Century Literacy Acquisition and Instruction in Marquette University's Hartman Center
Team lead: Kathleen Clark
The proposed project represents a re-envisionment of the Marquette University Hartman Literacy and Learning Center’s after school reading intervention program for urban Milwaukee children who struggle with literacy acquisition. It seeks to bring the program into the digital era through the use of technology-mediated instruction delivered via iPad devices. We have two goals: (1) to develop children’s traditional literacies of reading and writing while fostering their acquisition of new literacies, that is, those skills, strategies, insights, and dispositions needed to use and adapt to the information and communication technologies inherent in the world today (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004); and (2) to develop the technological pedagogical content knowledge of the elementary teacher preparation students who serve as children’s instructors in the Center.
HPGM Student Chapter Engagement Initiative
Team lead: Antonio Martinez
In 2013, in partnership with the Hispanic Professionals of Greater Milwaukee, a group of ambitious Marquette University students started an HPGM Student Chapter. Hispanic Professionals of Greater Milwaukee works to create a strong network of Hispanic students and professionals who exercise leadership and responsibility within their workplaces and communities. As an integral part of Milwaukee’s culture and workforce, HPGM believes it is vital to help young Latinos thrive. HPGM student members at Marquette are ready to take the next step in engaging a diverse group of students and offering more opportunities for growth both in Milwaukee and surrounding areas including engaging in other events with other local HPGM student chapters at UW-Milwaukee, MATC, and Alverno College.
Pilot Project for Collaborative Research with Industry at the Global Water Center.
Team lead: Patrick McNamara
Marquette University (MU) resides in the center of Milwaukee, full of opportunities in the global water economy. To be fully engaged in research in action, MU must team with industry and public water utilities to harness the full power of Milwaukee, and more widely distribute the Marquette name throughout the community. At Marquette we strive to be global leaders in water research. To do so we must take advantage of the rich water research opportunities right here in Milwaukee. The Global Water Center (GWC) provides an exceptional opportunity to connect MU with industry and public utilities. This proposal outlines a plan to develop collaborative infrastructure at the GWC. This infrastructure plan will involve an initial demonstration project focusing on collaboration among MU, private industry, and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District. This plan will be based on wastewater research that is on-going already at MU. We propose that biochar, a byproduct made from an emerging wastewater treatment process, can be used to remove pollutants of emerging concern from wastewater, and plan to conduct pilot-scale research with partners at the GWC to setup up infrastructure for future projects at the GWC.
Center for Sales Excellence Initiative
Team lead: Alex Milovic
We are requesting funds to develop a sales program within the marketing department. Responding to a call from companies to increase the number of sales graduates (HBR, "Teaching Sales", 2012), many top universities have started to develop sales programs to provide students with the education and experience necessary to succeed upon graduation. Building on the success of these university programs – which include Baylor, DePaul, Michigan State, and Indiana– we are looking to develop and promote our program both internally (among our students and students who are applying for admission to the university) and to regional and national companies. Our plan is to develop a pipeline for students to move into advanced sales positions, gain funding from partner companies to increase on- and off-campus events, and to develop a series of courses and training programs that can be delivered to company sales employees for executive education, either at Marquette or at the company’s location.
A Proposal for the Development of a Cognitive Science Major
Team lead: Corinne Bloch-Mullins
We propose a dual-stream project: (a) to research, draft, and submit a complete proposal for a new Cognitive Science major (hereafter CS major) while concurrently (b) developing and debuting a new Philosophy of Mind and Science track (hereafter PSM track) in the Philosophy department. Pursuing these projects concurrently makes logistical sense and brings several strategic advantages, outlined in what follows. Furthermore, both of these goals share the same ultimate aims: they foster interdisciplinary learning experiences and therefore are expected to draw the attention of new and existing students, and they support Marquette’s Jesuit mission and Strategic Plan.
Non-Electric Oxygen Concentrator for Developing Countries: Ghana
Team lead: Lars Olson
The World Health Organization has recently highlighted the need for better oxygen supplies for environments without electricity. Current systems such as commercial oxygen concentrators or delivering tanks are a problem for poor rural regions because of cost and electricity. We propose a new kind of oxygen system for rural clinics that produces and stores oxygen locally, driven principally by renewable energy sources. We call it the NeOx, or Non-electric Oxygen system. Rather than simply try to fit existing technology from developed countries into poor regions, we aim to redesign the entire oxygen delivery system for rural Africa and beyond. We propose in this pilot study to: (1) refine the NeOx design and build a robust prototype for field testing, (2) install the NeOx system in a rural clinic in Saboba, Ghana, and (3) evaluate its performance and refine the design. The results from this study will be used as pilot data for grants to scale up NeOx for use throughout Africa.
Innovations in Teaching and Research: Technology Day at Marquette
Team lead: Gary Meyer
The Committee on Academic Technology plans to host this event annually to promote and encourage academic technology. The goals of the event are 1) to demonstrate the innovative use of technology in teaching and research at Marquette University; 2) to encourage collaboration among peers; and 3) to initiate a dialogue regarding academic technology within the institution. Currently, there is no forum or showcase to highlight innovative and excellent use of academic technology. By providing this high-profile event, we expect to inspire and encourage additional technological innovations within the Marquette community. This year, the day will include opening remarks from Marquette University President Michael R. Lovell, a keynote speaker, Dr. Bryan Alexander, Lightning Talks from Marquette faculty, Faculty panel discussions, and tours of campus technology labs and facilities, such as the Opus College of Engineering visualization lab.
MA in Corporate Communication
Team lead: Sarah Feldner
We propose a joint MA in Corporate Communication that will intentionally integrate advanced communication theory and practice with the advanced business education that communication executives need in the contemporary global environment. It will be Marquette’s first dual degree with an international partner. We propose a dual degree Master of Arts in Corporate Communication. Marquette’s College of Communication, College of Business, and Office of International Education would partner with the Copenhagen Business School (CBS) to offer this program. The curriculum would blend advanced communication theory and practice, advanced business education, and close attention to the communication challenges organizations face responding to international markets, working with diverse cultures, and operating in different political systems. The program would prepare students for future roles as high-level communication executives capable of guiding their organizations’ strategy and practice.
Promoting Assets and Reducing Crime (PARC) on Milwaukee's Near West Side
Team lead: Patrick Kennelly
PARC is a five year initiative to revitalize and sustain the Near West Side as a thriving business and residential corridor, through collaborative efforts to promote economic development, improve housing, unify neighborhood identity and branding, and provide greater safety for students, residents, and businesses. Each Near West Side anchor institution (Aurora Health Care, Harley-Davidson, Marquette University, MillerCoors, Potawatomi Business Development Corporation) is asked to provide the equivalent of one year of funding from each anchor of the initiative. PARC is rooted in the idea that the challenges in the Near West Side can be solved rather than simply managed. PARC’s proactive, innovative, and multi-faceted asset promotion component and crime reduction component work in tandem to improve life in the target area. PARC convenes the community to invest in and transform the Near West Side.
Partnerships for Excellence through Advanced Visualization
Team lead: John LaDisa
The MARquette Visualization Lab (MARVL) is a state-of-the-art, $1.2M, 1,700 sq ft space with computers, software, projectors, surround sound, and other hardware that produce three-dimensional (3D), immersive (i.e. >180 degree field of view) virtual reality environments. The facility can be used to walk through simulated buildings that do not yet exist, show blood flow through an artery in vivid 3D, or simulate the dangerous collapse of a building in an earthquake with no danger to the viewers. MARVL was created using alumni donations for Engineering Hall, but does not currently have operating or maintenance budgets. The 3 year project proposed herein will foster MARVL’s sustainability by creating partnerships and operating funding from industry (private & public). This approach is modeled after the 35-year success of the NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center Program that provides a structural template for industry collaboration and funding for university center operations.
Marquette Democracy Lab: A Research Initiative to Increase Civic Engagement and Improve Communities
Team lead: Amber Wichowsky
Marquette Democracy Lab seeks to connect innovative social science research to urban public policy. We do this by bringing together faculty, students, and local stakeholders to conduct impact evaluations of community development efforts. Our goal is to identify interventions that can increase civic engagement and improve neighborhood well-being. MDL’s collaborative studies address two challenges. The first is to identify ways to increase neighborhood civic capacity, a critical ingredient to policy success. The second is to direct scarce resources to interventions that have an impact, whether on civic engagement, health/wellness, public safety, or sustainability. By focusing on urban policy and governance, MDL fills an important niche; existing groups that provide a similar service focus primarily on global poverty. Our interdisciplinary studies build on the strengths of faculty and the mission of the university, and help connect scholars, policymakers, and civic leaders in the region.
Center for Flexible Assembly Systems Startup
Team lead: Joseph Schimmels
The project plan is to establish an NSF Industry/University Collaborative Research Center with the purpose of guiding, coordinating, and performing pre-competitive research directed toward making manufacturing assembly operations more flexible, i.e., more responsive to product/process change. The Center for Flexible Assembly Systems (CFAS) will develop the processes and equipment needed to achieve higher-quality, higher-throughput smart assembly automation systems. This center will be established with Marquette as the lead institution and is expected to include regional academic collaborators. Local industry demand for a center of this type is high and future federal support is expected. Funds requested would bootstrap the center startup through renovation of existing space and the purchase of the fundamental equipment needed for CFAS research. This dedicated space and research equipment will provide physical evidence of center viability to its potential membership and this investment will show that Marquette is seriously committed to its success.
Building the Technology Transfer Program at Marquette University
Team lead: Katherine Durben
The overall goal of the proposed initiative is to build a comprehensive and coordinated process for technology transfer at Marquette University that enhances research and innovation and ensures that research deliverables benefit local and global communities. To this end, the specific aims of this project are 1) to develop a five-year roadmap for expansion of technology transfer capabilities at Marquette University, and 2) to implement short-term improvements to existing technology transfer processes. The strategic development of technology transfer capabilities will advance the mission of Marquette University by enhancing our culture of innovation, which will lead to a greater sharing of knowledge within our campus and local and global communities.
Create Sustainable Psychology Internship and Improve Effectiveness of Milwaukee Non-Profit Agencies
Team lead: Ed de St. Aubin
Two years of funding are requested (July 1, 2015 - July 1, 2017) to support the design and creation of a sustainable internship program for the Psychology Department. A major aspect of this work involves community engagement both in terms of vetting non-profits for appropriateness of fit and then working closely with those chosen in piloting interns there and providing workshops and ongoing consultation regarding mentorship and supervision of interns. This component is necessary for a truly successful internship program since non-profit agencies are often under-resourced and ineffective in the mentoring of interns.
Program support for The Commons
Team lead: Charles Ries
The Commons is a multi-university, cross-disciplinary entrepreneurship education program, whose mission is to attract, educate and retain the brightest entrepreneurial and innovative students in Southeast Wisconsin. The Commons provides students a unique opportunity to form diverse teams and learn about structured approaches to entrepreneurship and innovation while gaining real-world experience solving complex business challenges. The model is experiential in nature, forcing collaboration and the fusion of academic disciplines. In the fall of 2014, The Commons accepted 143 students representing 19 of the 21 universities for a pilot program that led to the formation of 16 teams working on student startups and corporate innovation challenges. Of those 143 students, over 50 students were enrolled at Marquette. Teams continue learning and working on their projects through a series of innovation workshops currently being held. Based on input from the students, the academic partners and the corporate challengers, plans are now underway to launch a more comprehensive program later this fall.
Development of an immersive undergraduate research experience in drug discovery and development
Team lead: Martin St. Maurice
This project seeks to develop a pilot program in drug discovery and development (the ME(D)3 program: Marquette Experience in Drug Discovery and Development) that will offer an innovative interdisciplinary research and mentoring experience for undergraduate students. The ME(D)3 program involves cutting-edge, student-directed research with a high potential to generate publications and patentable research products. The project includes collaboration with the Milwaukee School of Engineering SMART team program that will enable undergraduate and graduate student mentorship of select Milwaukee area high school students. Upon the successful conclusion of this pilot program, the student-directed research and mentoring components will be integrated into an honors-track biochemistry research experience within the existing chemistry and biology curricula.
Improving the Grant Management Process from Application to Closeout
Team lead: Katherine Durben
In FY 2014, Marquette personnel submitted 390 grant applications totaling $51.6M and received 182 awards totaling $25.4M. These numbers will double in the next five years. In order to prepare for this, the university must strengthen its grants management infrastructure. The process of submitting applications and managing awards currently in place is fragmented and inefficient. Technology is not being used wisely; there is duplication of effort and rekeying of information, which leads to less productivity and higher chances for error. To this end, we are proposing to acquire an electronic grants management system. This single system would revolutionize the way a project is managed from the application stage through the grant closeout and would benefit faculty and staff campus wide.
Human Performance, Clinical Movement Assessment Core (CMac)
Team lead: Paula Papanek
We propose the creation of Human Performance Assessment Core or HPAC. This will be an innovative, self-sustaining, and fee-for-service core for assessment of human performance/health/fitness for all populations (i.e., healthy, athletic, and clinical). The core would service researchers, MU community, and the greater SE Wisconsin region. In order to create the HPAC we request funds to pay for specific expertise, equipment including capitol, possibly renovation costs and space. The core will facilitate new studies and projects for researchers who do not specialize in these assessments (nursing, engineering, athletics and students) and secure projects that are currently being turned away because of inadequate space, equipment, and staffing. Administratively housed in Exercise Science, HPAC would expand collaboration across several colleges/programs such as EXSC/PT, Biomedical Engineering, Athletics, Nursing, Marquette Medical and Sports Clinics, and Employee Wellness.
Catalyzing Innovation: ChangeMakers Unite
Team lead: Nicholas Santos
Marquette University is one of 30 universities worldwide that has been named an Ashoka U Changemaker Campus. Ashoka U, which started in 2008, is modeled after Ashoka, the world’s largest network of social entrepreneurs (over 3,000 Ashoka Fellows in 70 countries). The organization collaborates with universities to break down barriers to institutional change, foster a campus-wide culture of social innovation, and establish a network of universities and students committed to using creative imagination to solve social problems in a more humane, just, and sustainable manner. All current Ashoka U Changemaker campuses are required to undergo a renewal to stay in the Ashoka U network. Marquette University has requested to go through renewal in February 2016. The renewal process will consist of a launch event, site visit, and selection panel. The renewal process will ultimately produce key insights for the university to continue its social innovation programming. It will also guarantee Marquette stays in the network and receives the official designation as a Changemaker Campus through 2020.
Great Lakes Environmental Film Festival (GLEFF) / A Free Annual Event
Team lead: Joseph Brown
The Great Lakes Environmental Film Festival (GLEFF) is a new annual event that examines themes of sustainability, environmental justice, and ecological awareness in the media. GLEFF presents thought-provoking films and dialogue that raise awareness of a wide variety of interconnected ecological, social, and economic themes. The festival provides an experience for the audience that goes beyond passive film viewing: GLEFF inspires audiences into awareness and action while connecting the local to the global. GLEFF is a faculty / student collaboration directed by Joe Brown, former Director of the Colorado Environmental Film Festival and Professional-in-Residence in Digital Media at Marquette’s Diederich College of Communication. GLEFF is sponsored by the Diederich College of Communication.
Development of Marquette's University Honors Program
Team lead: Amelia Zurcher
We seek funds to help make Marquette’s University Honors Program (UHP) into the premier Jesuit Honors program in the United States. Specifically, we propose to expand the Honors Core to include natural and social sciences and an interdisciplinary capstone course; to integrate the Core curriculum across disciplines; and to develop Honors in the Field programs offering students enhanced opportunities for research and community engagement in their major fields. A more prominent, integrated, and all-University Honors program that actively fosters pedagogical innovation and offers an enhanced and sustained set of opportunities across College curricula to our strongest undergraduates will recruit outstanding prospective students, both freshmen and transfer; build a culture of academic excellence at Marquette; increase and intensify students’ community engagement; and increase student competitiveness for national and international fellowships and awards.
Project Freshwater
Team lead: T Ullrich
Project Freshwater, a team-taught, project-based learning experience for Marquette University’s Upward Bound (UB) participants, introduces low-income, first-generation young men and women to the vital importance of water to our lives and well being, instructing them in water studies and innovative engineering technologies that help sustain this valuable resource. A five-week, intensive summer educational program on Marquette’s campus, Project Freshwater investigates water’s biological, political, legal, and social dimensions in the University’s Water Quality Center, Law School, classrooms/labs, at Milwaukee’s Global Water Center, Discovery World, and Veolia Milwaukee, and through hands-on studies of Lake Michigan and area rivers. At summer’s end, students showcase their data and experiments at the annual summer academic exhibition as well as deliver learning units on water studies to Milwaukee inner-city elementary school students. The hub for global water studies, Milwaukee and Marquette provide an ideal setting for Upward Bound students to investigate water quality, policy, usage, and sustainability and to advance the region’s and Marquette’s dynamic role in the water technology and sustainability fields.
Water POD-mini water purification system
Team lead: Brooke Mayer
Our project aims to work with Marquette professors and students to demonstrate a practical, affordable and sustainable means to restore personal wellness and good water stewardship to those individuals and communities presently suffering from contaminated surface and well water. We plan to address these water issues by field testing a water purification unit (the Water POD) that provides premium (potable) water from contaminated sources. Our technology has been developed under the auspices of the Water Council’s Pilot Project at the Global Water Center. As part of the Pilot Project, the Water Council has agreed to provide 2:1 matching funds for Water POD development. Our proposed project will enable Marquette students to assume an active role in working with impacted citizens and communities and collaborate with scientific researchers, the Global Water Center, the Water Council, and the private sector.
Milwaukee Poverty Database
Team lead: Sharon McGowan
We will create a searchable, sortable database of information on poverty issues. The data will be accessed through Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (NNS), an online source for objective, professional reporting about central city Milwaukee, and available to the public, journalists, faculty and students on any device capable of Internet access. Data would include employment/unemployment rates; poverty by race, gender and neighborhood; incarceration rates; health statistics including morbidity and mortality, lead poisoning, substance abuse and asthma; and education statistics such as student achievement, dropout and truancy rates.
A Novel Design for Hybrid Biodegradable Bone Scaffold/Implant with Enhanced Mechanical Properties
Team lead: Lobat Tayebi
Metallic implants are widely used in bone treatment, but unfortunately these implants are not degradable, and second surgery is often required for their removal from the body. There have been serious attempts among researchers and manufacturers to produce biodegradable implants/scaffolds to avoid the need for the second surgery. However, poor mechanical strength in these products prohibits their commercialization. We are proposing a hybrid biodegradable scaffold with mechanical properties in the range of the human bone. The materials we are using in this scaffold are all FDA-approved and ready to go through the commercialization process. Our primary results verify 100 times enhancement in the mechanical strength of our new design scaffolds compared to the conventional ones.
The Marquette Water Quality Center: A Powerful Catalyst for Water Initiatives
Team lead: Daniel Zitomer
We propose to grow research, teaching and service on water issues by expanding the Marquette Water Quality Center (WQC). Today, Marquette (MU) is poised at an exciting moment since resources recently have been created. However, lack of administrative structure to coordinate efforts limits growth. Innovation Fund support is requested as seed funding. The new WQC will ultimately be sustained by research and gift funds. The center will be innovative in that it will be among the few water centers in the US that brings together engineering, science, law and policy to address global water issues. The new WQC will advance MU as a recognized leader in interdisciplinary water issues and a first-choice university for excellent students interested in water. The work will have lasting impact on campus ultimately by being a financially self-sustaining, interdisciplinary venue to involve undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, industry, government and others in research and teaching, as well as link academic, industry and government participants.
The CoLab
Team lead: Sam Wesley
In pursuit of increasing excellence in innovation and entrepreneurship at Marquette University, Creighton Joyce (Soph, Engineering) and Sam Wesley (Soph, Business) have created CoLab. CoLab is an innovative workspace with an emphasis on cross-disciplinary involvement that is very visually appealing and well-resourced for student entrepreneurs of all backgrounds. Through well thought out architectural designs of CoLab, entrepreneurial driven students will naturally be attracted to this hub. By having this attraction for these types of students, CoLab will have established a very powerful community for driven students with an entrepreneurial mindset. With the partnership with the Kohler Center, a community will now be in existence for the support of student ventures. In geographic regards to campus, CoLab will exist in the AMU as a neutral and central space. Due to this high traffic location, all members of the Marquette community will observe CoLab, which is ideal for many student run ventures. CoLab will function to incubate startups and provide resources necessary for surviving the early stages as a startup.
3D Printing of Customized Implants for Cleft Lip, Palate and Orofacial Deformities and Defects
Team lead: Lobat Tayebi
Cleft lip and cleft palate comprise the fourth most common birth defect in the United States. Cleft lip and cleft palate occur when tissues in the baby's face and mouth don't form properly. Nasoalveolar molding (NAM) of the cleft lip, nose and alveolar palate for restoration of function has been a successful strategy but has some important drawbacks. Removable appliances are inserted before surgical reconstruction and these are bulky and difficult to wear, requiring numerous adjustments, often irritate delicate soft tissues and interfere with the infant’s ability to nurse or feed. Advances in materials, equipment, and techniques are enabling on-demand, highly customized patient treatments. We will develop a highly innovative method that overcomes the problems with NAM by producing customized 3D printed removable appliances that match the contour and unique features of the cleft patient and permits easy modification and adjustments in size and contour as the segments approximate prior to surgical correction.
Assisted LIving Virtual Environment (ALIVE)
Team lead: Alex Barrington
The geriatric population is expanding at an ever-growing rate. However, there has been a prevalent divergence between the quantity of life (i.e. life expectancy) and the quality of life, with up to 75% of geriatric residents experiencing "end-of-life" depression according to the Institute for Ethics at the American Medical Association (AMA). ALIVE will unite quantity of life with quality of life. ALIVE will create a safe, user-friendly, portable, and panoramic virtual environment where assisted living residents can move through an outdoor scene of their choice. Our portable virtual environment will give geriatric residents an outlet to increase their mobility; decrease the effects of depression, anxiety, and isolation; and improve their quality of life. In doing so, ALIVE will provide residents with an atmosphere of care for the whole person, consistent with Marquette’s Jesuit mission.
Membrane and Resin Desalination System
Team lead: Emmanuel Kayiwa
The purpose of the Membrane and Resin Desalination System is to desalinate ocean water at less then half the power consumption of the most prevalent methods, reverse osmosis and thermal distillation. This system has been granted provisional patent status, and the focus of the proposed work is to finalize the design, construct a lab-scale system, and evaluate its effectiveness in treating saline water to potable standards. Desalination is the sustainable solution to the problem of water scarcity. As Marquette undergraduates we are committed to creating a sustainable water supply that can help many people. Through the pursuit of creating a desalination system, we believe that we can improve, human well-being and make the world a better place.
Marquette University Water Law and Policy Initiative
Team lead: Joseph Kearney
This proposal envisions the launch of a water law and policy initiative to enhance Marquette’s commitment to make Milwaukee a global destination for addressing water-related problems. The endeavor’s importance cannot be doubted: the world is entering an era in which the success of firms, the destiny of nations, and even the survival of individuals will be determined by whether policymakers wisely steward this critical resource. In short, as Pope Francis recently cautioned, the future of humanity depends on water. The initiative seeks to develop collaborative strategies that intertwine with and support innovative water-related ideas. It would be housed in the Law School and led by an experienced attorney with interdisciplinary training who will serve as a bridge in the Global Water Center for the Law School with the College of Engineering and other university departments and, as appropriate, between Marquette and the community. Ultimately, we seek to establish Marquette as a leading venue for broad-based engagement with legal and policy aspects of vital water issues.
Creation of a Diverse, Field-based Masters/Teacher Certification Program
Team lead: Sharon Chubbuck
Our goal is to explore the viability of creating a stronger, more diverse, K-12 classroom-grounded Masters/Teacher Certification program. Current research points to an innovative focus on masters/certification programs that are streamlined and significantly grounded in classroom experience. This new model is attractive to college graduates, effective in preparing qualified teachers, and potentially successful in building a more diverse teaching force. To move toward creating this more successful model, we seek innovation funds to support the following four actions: 1) analyze market need by creating, administering, and tallying a survey of interest, specifically targeting organizations with racially diverse populations; 2) research best practices of field-based Masters/Teacher Certification programs; 3) elicit concerns relevant to the potential market of graduate students; and 4) explore the alignment of best practices, the interest and concerns of potential markets, our current course offerings/program structures, and state certification requirements in order inform our creation of a streamlined, K-12 grounded Masters/Teacher Certification program.