A quest to fight some of our biggest threats
Interior design that improves kids’ lives Inside a quiet room on the Ball State campus, 5-year-old Camden wrinkles up his nose and frowns at the ceiling, looking for the source of a sudden noise. Seconds later he’s back at play, seemingly untroubled, but on the other side of the darkened glass, Dr. Shireen Kanakri closely watches the scene. Minutes later, as Camden shares a Children with autism can fun memory from last Halloween, more be especially sensitive to sudden noises occur. Monitors show the boy’s heart rate and blood pressure their surroundings. Shireen shoot upward in response. Kanakri’s life mission is to While Camden and other kids may find out how we can use not show a reaction to such noises, color, lighting, sound, and “their bodies tell us a story,” said more to make kids on the Kanakri, assistant professor of interior spectrum comfortable. design in the R. Wayne Estopinal College of Architecture and Planning (CAP). “There is evidence through changing behaviors and varying blood pressure rates that a child’s body is significantly impacted by his or her environment.” Kanakri is leading the Healthy Autism Design Lab, created to help researchers observe children’s reaction to different environments. Several CAP undergraduates have assisted her research, as well as an undergraduate psychological science student and an audiology doctoral student. Kanakri came to the U.S. from Jordan in 2008 to earn a doctorate in architecture at Texas A&M. She had an idea that she wanted
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to pursue a career in health care design. She spent a lot of time observing hospitals. Several had centers for children with autism. Kanakri didn’t like what she saw. The centers looked cold and uncomfortable, with gray colors and huge, glaring windows — or rooms without any windows. She found there were no guidelines that would allow them to design rooms just for this special population. She wanted to know exactly how interior design affects people with autism. Her goal is to make their lives more comfortable when they are indoors. A mother herself, Kanakri knew how, with kids, sometimes small things can change their lives. Her research offers proof that interior design is about more than just enhancing a room’s look; it’s also about improving its functionality. In an ongoing immersive learning course, she leads students in designing and building an entire building at Children’s TherAplay Foundation in Carmel, Indiana, which provides physical and occupational therapies for children with diagnoses such as cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, traumatic brain injury, and developmental delays. “We are specifically designing the pieces that will be used to help treat the children,” Kanakri said. “Everything will be tested here, in our labs, before they are implemented at the facility in Carmel.”
Dr. Maoyong Fan researches diverse areas of economics and health. The topics of his studies are how pollution (studied separately in China and the U.S.) harms human health, whether subsidized food programs increase the incidence of obesity in low-income recipients, how the built environment affects children’s weight and obesity, and why fewer agricultural laborers are Maoyong Fan researches migrating in the U.S. His studies have a common the impact of water and theme: how economics can improve air pollution on health human life and how economic to help inform policy analysis can help us understand decisions in China and and frame public policies. the U.S. “Environmental “I was determined to study the pollution is one of the impact of pollution since childhood,” said Fan, a professor of economics biggest threats to human who started at Miller College of health,” he says. Business in 2009, shortly after earning his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. “I grew up in a small town in China that had problems with air pollution and water pollution. Many people I knew suffered from pollutionrelated diseases, including liver cancer and cardiac arrest. “Environmental pollution is among the biggest threats to human health. The whole family is affected if one member gets sick, especially in developing countries. Yet research into the costs and consequences
of environmental degradation in developing countries is extraordinarily limited. “My hope is to provide research to policymakers to assist them in understanding the true costs and consequences of air and water pollution. With this knowledge, they can implement policies that improve the environment and their people’s well-being and welfare.” Policymakers have listened to him. Research he and his colleagues did on the effects of air pollution in cities north of the Huai River in China motivated the government to alter its winter heating program. Prior to his work, the heating policy had almost exclusively relied on coal. Fan’s research found that the particles emitted from burning coal shortened people’s life expectancy by about three years. In response, the Chinese government started a gasification campaign to replace coal with natural gas, a much cleaner fuel, for the winter heating program. Recognized as a leading expert in environmental health, Fan received Ball State University’s Outstanding Research Award in 2019. He said his research also makes him a better teacher. “My research projects provide a lot of real-world examples that enhance my students’ learning. These real-world examples encourage my students to think harder and analyze what happens in their lives. I hope my teaching leads them to have successful lives.”
Ball State University Alumni Magazine | WE FLY
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