MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY | DIVISION OF RESEARCH & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
INNOVATIONWORKS FALL/WINTER 2021 | VOLUME 3
OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER NEWSLETTER
March is Women's History Month, and a number of national organizations are highlighting women innovators and entrepreneurs. This issue highlights two of Morgan's women innovators.
SKROWNOITAVONNI
CREATING GLOBAL CITIZENS
Always touted as the melting pot of the world, the United States has truly become the home to people from a wide array of cultural backgrounds. Learning a second language has proven to be more beneficial as the country becomes more and more diverse. The two to three years of a foreign language that students are required to take in high school, and in some undergraduate level programs, often provides a cursory introduction to the language. Many times, fluency in the language is not the outcome of those courses. So, what happens when you want to visit a country for an extended stay, immerse yourself in the culture, or court a love interest? You either wing it and hope for the best, or learn the language. Kimberly Warren, PhD, chose the latter.
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A personal trip to Guatemala to learn Spanish through a week-long immersive learning experience, that included one-on-one Spanish lessons, cultural enrichment activities, and a home stay, blossomed into a study abroad program. Dr. Warren realized that she had found a perfect venue to educate students beyond the borders of the United States and show them firsthand what health and health disparities look like in other parts of the world. As a component of her Health Psychology course, Dr. Warren developed a program that included community service in the form of free health screenings for adults and health promotion education to elementary school students to shed light on important global issues she felt were being ignored. Through funding from an OTT Grant, Dr. Warren developed an innovative Global Competency Experiential Learning program, which enables students to travel to another country such as Guatemala, El Salvador, and soon to Paraguay, to provide health screenings, volunteer, and teach classes on nutrition and hygiene. The students who travel to these countries are completely immersed in the culture through daily Spanish lessons, cultural activities, and excursions that teach them about the respective country they are visiting. Dr. Warren’s STEAM Abroad™ program is the first immersive learning and cultural experience for students. STEAM Abroad™ combines the traditional STEM disciplines: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics with an arts component to provide a wellrounded experience for all participants.
Dr. Warren & a STEAM Abroad™ cohort
Dr. Warren was recently awarded the Cultural Heroes Grant, which aligns students from underrepresented communities with the opportunity to participate in academic exchange programs in Latin America, which will also help extend the reach of the STEAM Abroad™ program. The Office of Technology Transfer matched this grant through funding from its IGAP program to help in expanding the curriculum and marry the nursing and psychology disciplines. The program will demonstrate how both fields can impact the community through service-learning projects. (continued on page 4)
WHAT DRIVES INNOVATION?
Innovation Drivers are the factors that drive both “big I” (new and potentially disruptive innovation), and “little i” (incremental) innovation. Common drivers of organizational innovation include: consumer need, improved quality, creation of new markets, reduced labor and material costs, improved efficiency, reduced environmental damage and energy consumption, and conformance to regulations. Innovators themselves may be driven by a personal or emotional connection. Each issue of Innovation Works will provide the reader a window on what drives Morgan’s innovators.
SAFETY FIRST
“Safety first” is often an adage embedded in our brains when we do several things, from crossing the street and looking both ways, to buckling our seat belt when we learn to drive. Those behaviors become so automatic that we often do them with little to no thought. Some of us develop a habit, while others may link the behavior to an experience of trauma or in the hopes of avoiding such a thing. Then there are some who turn the notion of safety into a passion that leads to a career path of innovation and giving back - meet Mansoureh Jeihani, PhD. Dr. Jeihani is an engineer by trade and currently serves as a professor in the Department of Transportation and Urban Infrastructure Studies in the School of Engineering and as Director of the National Transportation Center at Morgan State. Her passion for people’s safety and mobility, especially the most vulnerable populations, has contributed to the innovations she has developed with her colleagues and students. She has furthered two of those innovations as an awardee of I-GAP grants funded by OTT, including 1) The Integrated Automated Wheelchair and Adapted Automated Vehicle System and 2) Safety Applications for Work Zones.
Dr. Jeihani (left) & student collaborators working on a traffic model.
The Integrated Automated Wheelchair technology integrates two modes of travel with automated vehicle technology, allowing users with multiple disability types to make short distance trips independently. The wheelchair system is programmable and is enabled to navigate to its destination via the best route with limited direction and steering by the user. Dr. Jeihani and her team equipped the chair with ultrasonic and optical sensors to avoid any collisions, a real-time GPS tracker and a carrier for any baggage. The overall goal of the design, outside of functionality, was to provide comfort and convenience for people with disabilities. (continued on page 4)