21 minute read
The Green
Sensor Cloud Network Research Could Lead to Fewer Falls, Better Quality of Life
Researchers record realtime data from graduate research assistant Brett Meyer's body as he exercises. These data can help early detection of fall risk in patients with multiple sclerosis. INNOVATION | Reducing falls for multiple sclerosis patients could be among the outcomes of the University of Vermont’s participation in Medidata’s Sensor Cloud Network. “We are leveraging tools and technology to advance our work in the development of fall risk detection in the multiple sclerosis population, a disease that affects 2.3 million patients worldwide, 50% of whom will experience a fall that negatively impacts their quality of life,” said Ryan McGinnis, associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Biomedical Engineering and director of UVM’s M-Sense Research Group, which develops innovative health technologies with partners in engineering, medicine, mental health, and movement science.
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UVM is joining the Sensor Cloud Network as part of Medidata’s rapidly expanding approach to patient care. Medidata, a Dassault Systèmes company, has announced that AliveCor, Aural Analytics, Biobeat, Blue Spark Technologies, Glooko, Indie Health, University of Arizona, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Rochester, and University of Vermont are now part of the first cross-sector collaboration focused on solving the challenges related to sensor integrations, standardization of sensor data, and the development of novel digital biomarkers and algorithms. These will help to create new digital endpoints that could translate into more effective treatments and better health care for patients.
Fall risk detection is just one of many potential applications. As one of the health technology innovators involved in the network, UVM is at the forefront of revolutionizing patient care and positive outcomes. The University has emerged as a leader in biomedical research in recent years, through its ABET-accredited Biomedical Engineering program, which is unique in its field because of its proximity to the University of Vermont Medical Center (UVMMC), and the launching of its vibrant Center for Biomedical Innovation. Through its work with the Sensor Cloud Network, UVM builds upon its groundbreaking research in the biomedical arena.
The Sensor Cloud Network, which includes contract research organizations (CROs), device manufacturers, drug and vaccine developers, analytics companies, and academic institutions, creates opportunities
for data scientists to refine, test, and deliver physiological algorithms with clinical meaning at scale. Examples include refined motion parameters like gait, cardiovascular metrics, metabolic insights, and clinical grade speech analytics.
“The Sensor Cloud Network is allowing us to explore the combination of patient reported outcomes and medical grade wearables data in remote settings at scale to better understand this problem and to develop a digital intervention,” McGinnis said.
“As the use of sensors in clinical trials is predicted to reach 50% by 2025, we are focused on making Medidata Sensor Cloud the industry standard for collecting and analyzing medical grade sensor data,” said Ben Schlatka, vice president, Digital Biomarker Solutions at Medidata. “We are excited to work with a diverse group of partners to help shape the future of patient data collection and analysis across a wide variety of therapeutic areas.”
Spatial Analysis Lab Helps First Responders Take Flight
COMMUNITY | When an accident or natural disaster happens there are a lot of questions that need to get answered as quickly as possible. First responders arrive on the scene and assess, but when the situation is in a hard-to-reach location, or an unprecedented disaster has occurred, it can be difficult to act fast. UVM is helping to enhance the way first responders and emergency personnel assess and react to accidents and extreme weather events with Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS or drones).
A FEMA-funded program hosted by the UVM Spatial Analysis Lab brought drone training to 15 emergency-response roles across Vermont in early August 2022. The mix of public safety, firefighting, emergency management, search and rescue, and agriculture and natural resource personnel spent two days learning about UAS technology, flying drones on campus, and assessing drone-gathered data in the lab.
The program received vital support from U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and was able to take place at UVM because of the institution’s ASSURE Core Member status, achieved in fall 2021. ASSURE is the FAA’s Center of Excellence for UAS Research and is the lead on the FEMA first responder training project. This workshop will serve as a model for similar FEMA-funded trainings that will be implemented across the country.
“Technology is playing an increasingly important role in disaster response and recovery. I was pleased to support funding that will bolster the work of the University of Vermont, which is leading the way in the Northeast, in partnership with Vermont Technical College, to support the FAA and ASSURE. This is critical research and development that will help Vermont’s first responders to save lives and give Vermont businesses access to cutting-edge drone technology,” said Leahy.
This collaborative effort is just one of many drone programs happening at UVM. The Spatial Analysis Lab, housed in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, has grown substantially over the past eight years and now instructs and employs nearly 40 students and staff. In addition to supporting disaster response and assessment, the Lab is home to innovative geospatial research conducted by UVM faculty, postdocs, and students. From assessing urban tree canopy distribution and creating regional heat maps to capturing aerial footage of harmful algal blooms on Lake Champlain to gauging the severity of defoliation by spongy moth caterpillars, the lab is conducting important ecological and environmental justice research.
| THE GREEN
UVM Research Portfolio Tops $250 Million
RESEARCH | The University of Vermont faculty and staff attracted over a quarter-billion dollars in research funding in the fiscal year ending June 30, reaching a new all-time high. In recent years, the university has focused its research activities on the health of our environment and societies with increased emphasis on building a campus infrastructure to support researchers’ work.
“Research at UVM directly addresses the global challenges of our time, seeking solutions that benefit Vermont and the world,” said President Suresh Garimella. “Our scholars’ success in securing external funding reflects the world-class quality of the faculty and our collective ambition to position UVM among the most successful public research universities in the U.S.”
UVM attracted $250.1 million for research last fiscal year, an 8.3% increase from the $231 million total of the previous fiscal year, marking a third consecutive year of robust research growth. For the first time, this year UVM ranks among the top 100 public research universities in the country, according to the most recent National Science Foundation (NSF) Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey.
A large component of last year’s growth is the increasing number of competitive awards UVM faculty proposed and won. Faculty garnered more than 40 awards of $1 million or more compared to 27 in the previous year.
The Larner College of Medicine had another impressive year of research growth, with over $108 million of research awards, funding projects that address the ever-evolving health care challenges of Vermont and beyond. Recent grants directly support the Vermont Center for Cardiovascular and Brain Health, the Vermont Center on Behavior and Health, and the UVM Center for Biomedical Shared Resources.
In total, the Larner College of Medicine earned 400 research awards in fiscal year 2022, 52% of UVM’s 798 total awards. This represents an 8% increase from the year before. But research activities are increasingly spread across multiple colleges and schools, including the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, the College of Education and Social Services, and the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. Together, this group accounted for 48% of all awards and 50% of total sponsored research funding.
“Looking at the variety of academic disciplines winning increasing support for research, it’s easy to see why UVM is now among the top 100 public research universities in the United States,” said UVM Vice President for Research Kirk Dombrowski.
“As we continue to build upon our research strengths, expanded funding and more and more innovative approaches are fueling the UVM research engine,” said Dombrowski. “That engine, in turn, drives sustained economic development in Vermont and will strengthen our economy and quality of life in the state in ways we have yet to see.”
An important aspect of economic development is UVM’s focus on corporate partnerships and technology commercialization. UVM Innovations’ gross revenue from technology transfer opportunities and UVM startups topped $1 million for the first time thanks to the spin-off of Packetized Energy, acquired by EnergyHub in March.
UVM’s growing list of corporate partners includes Mass Mutual, Agilent Technologies, Seventh Generation, and Global Foundries. UVM recently dedicated the Agilent Laboratory for Chemical Analysis, a hub for advanced instrumentation that will be a valuable technology resource for local and regional businesses. The lab was made possible by the partnership with Agilent.
As the state’s land grant university, supporting and increasing economic vitality in Vermont is one of the university’s top strategic imperatives.
Andrew Crompton '23 examines a tray of purple-stained human cancer cells in a Stafford Hall research lab run by Nimrat Chatterjee. Crompton's independent research supports the lab's larger mission of "reducing or inhibiting cells' resistance to cancer therapies."
| THE GREEN
Moving the Needle
HEALTH | Thanks to a $5.5 million investment from the Bernard Osher Foundation, UVM Integrative Health and Integrative Therapies at the University of Vermont Cancer Center joined the nationally recognized Comprehensive Pain Program this summer to become the Osher Center for Integrative Health at the University of Vermont. The powerful connection places UVM among an international network of 11 academic institutions—ranging from Harvard and Northwestern to the University of Washington and UC San Francisco—in the Osher Collaborative for Integrative Health.
Led by Dr. Jon Porter, founding medical director and division chief of comprehensive pain management, Cara Feldman-Hunt, associate director, Dr. Kim Dittus, medical director of oncology supportive services, and Educational Program Director Karen Westervelt, the Osher Center will work to promote whole patient care, research, education, and health policy centered on treatments that incorporate proven methods from a variety of fields complementing allopathic medicine.
The Osher Center will be housed in enhanced educational and community spaces on UVM’s main campus and in the South Burlington clinical facilities of the Comprehensive Pain Program, which brings together modern medicine, evidence-based integrative therapies, and a group-based curriculum to address the challenges experienced by those who experience chronic pain. The Center’s additional clinical sites include Integrative Therapies at the UVM Cancer Center (offering acupuncture, yoga, massage, Reiki, gardening, health coaching, culinary medicine, and group medical visits for adults with cancer) and the UVM Children’s Hospital (offering massage and music therapy for children and their caregivers), and an integrative health and wellness coaching faculty practice offering services to UVM and UVM Medical Center employees.
A primary goal of the Osher Center is to work toward eradicating disparities in the delivery of integrative care. Because research related to the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of integrative therapies is an important step toward improving insurance coverage for them, the Center will serve as a hub for research and policy development. The Center’s policy arm will capitalize on Vermont’s health care reform progress and the goal of achieving greater health equity, particularly in rural and underserved communities. Through membership in the Osher Collaborative, the Osher Center will seek insight into the use of integrative health practices with diverse populations to ensure health equity and address health disparities for chronic conditions among Chittenden County’s growing racially and ethnically diverse population and Vermont’s more than 50% rural, socioeconomically diverse population statewide.
Integrative medical education and a biannual integrative pain management conference will also be offered through the new Osher Center. Practitioners, faculty members, researchers, and students from UVM’s College of Nursing and Health Sciences and Larner College of Medicine will work together through the network to serve the patient populations and clinics of the UVM Medical Center, the UVM Cancer Center, and the entire UVM Health Network.
“UVM and UVM Medical Center have an important leadership role in the delivery of care in our region and the conversation about making quality care more accessible to the community,” said UVM Provost and Senior Vice President Patricia Prelock, who will oversee Osher Center operations. “The Osher Center will showcase UVM at its best—building a healthier society.”
— Patricia Prelock
UVM Provost and Senior Vice President
“Go talk to Joe.” That’s a line that many UVM students in crisis have heard over the years. Joseph Russell grew up in Kingston, Jamaica; has worked with young people in both colleges and high schools; and joined the UVM staff in 2005. Today, he is the assistant dean of students within the Office of the Vice Provost and Dean of Students. His calm, compassionate manner—and deep well of knowledge about mental health concerns, roommates in conflict, financial crises, substance abuse, family tragedies, academic struggles, and other problems that afflict students—make his office a key stop on the path to help. We stopped into this office in Nicholson House—a remarkably inviting place, with big windows, soothing corduroy armchairs, bright photos, and warm lights—to have our own talk with Joe.
Joseph Russell
ASSISTANT DEAN OF STUDENTS
Many students come into your office and sit down here on this couch. What brings them in?
RUSSELL: The majority of students who end up in my office are going through some distress or crisis: “I’m losing sleep. I’m not able to study. I’m no longer going to class. I can’t get along with my roommate. There’s trouble at home.” I hear about many challenges including depression and anxiety. My job in leading the UVM CARE Team is to be a point of support across a whole bunch of issues—to help students navigate UVM systems and get them connected to resources or help problem-solve. Most often that’s mental health related but whatever the issue might be—anything that gets in the way of students being able to live, love, laugh, learn, and succeed. I work to connect them to the right person. Is it an academic advisor? Financial aid? Mental health counselor? Career center? Is it a spiritual concern? It’s case by case. Sometimes, I meet with a student once and they’re off and running. Other times, I meet with a student weekly, set small goals, and check in consistently. Are things getting better or worse? What else do we need to try?
3 QUESTIONS
College has long been a huge transition for many young people. But in the wake of COVID-19 and a raft of global troubles, it has become even more challenging. Nationally, 40% of college students report feeling so depressed that it’s hard to function. What have you noticed and how is UVM responding?
RUSSELL: We have seen some baselines shift. I'm sure folks in our counseling center and at student health have data to show increased number of appointments, more students being managed for prescription medications. I think for everyone—not just students, but as staff and faculty as well— baselines around resilience have shifted, have gotten a bit less robust. Students are more disillusioned. It doesn't take a lot for some students to feel like: “Ugh, when will COVID end?” And they have grown up in a world where every earthquake and tsunami, every war or bombing, is popping up in the palm of their hand. We hear from students that climate change is not this abstract concern. It’s very personal— wildfires, floods, deforestation, plastics in the ocean. Many of our students are super engaged with the world and with politics. We see this mirroring of how the landscape and the political landscape impact our students. And simply stepping onto a campus of 10,000 students sometimes can feel a little overwhelming.
Our north star is to help students flourish—to be healthy, engaged, and successful. The foundation of this is physical and emotional wellbeing that allows students to really engage in the rich fabric of UVM, not just be active in classes, but outside the classroom too, making friends, building a vibrant social life. Learning something new, play behavior, have opportunities to help other people, having a structured way to explore spirituality and meaning-making—these are some of the signs we look for in students who are thriving. And we have many programs to help with this. One new one that I’m super excited about, one of the most tangible ways we’re addressing the changes we see in how students arrive and deal with college, is a new pilot program we’re launching: hiring full-time staff who’ll live on campus in residence halls. These staff have mental health backgrounds and can provide support in a tough moment, be on call in the event of an after-hours emergency, and be able to really address the more complicated mental health landscape.
You grew up in Jamaica. How does that show up for you in the work you do?
RUSSELL: There’s a certain amount of representational diversity, right? Students who might look like me, see me in a place of leadership—and that can be helpful. I try my best, without disclosing too much, to be open about growing up in Jamaica and that I'm a multiracial, gay man living in Vermont and all of what that means—the joys and challenges for my family and myself to be well. Sometimes when I work with students, I invite them to see what that means for me, and how I show up and how I lead with vulnerability. No one has it all down. Everyone goes through struggles. It's how we support each other—and connect with people and resources around us, to help us through those moments—that makes the difference.
50 Years of Rescue
Use the camera on your phone or tablet to scan this QR code, or
go.uvm.edu/rescuevid
to watch a video about UVM Rescue.
Halle Sisenwine '24, Emily Haworth '21, Elias Colberg '22 , and Katya Cavanaugh '23 (left to right) stand in front of one of UVM Rescue's two ambulance vehicles. LEGACY | When Paula Oppenheim ’75 (now Paula Cope) arrived on the UVM campus, from New York City, in the fall of 1971, she was 16 years old. Her father had died suddenly the year before, and “my mother was an addict with lots of mental health issues,” Cope (above) recalls. “She told me, ‘I’m just not into this mother thing, so have a good life.’ And I never saw her again.” Cope became an emancipated minor—“I hid in the dorms during Christmas break because I had no home,” she said.
But that didn’t stop Cope—during her first year of college—from taking a full load of courses, starting the first ROTC program for women on campus, “falling totally in love with Vermont and UVM,” she said—and co-founding a student-led ambulance corps, UVM Rescue.
Last spring, to celebrate the milestone, Vermont Governor Phil Scott issued a proclamation declaring Monday, April 25, 2022, “UVM Rescue Day.”
“A half-century has gone by and it’s still inspirational,” says Cope, who now lives in Williston, Vt., and runs a management consulting business. “When I see UVM Rescue on the road, going to a call, and I see those students at the wheel, I feel proud. When I see them at an accident, I breathe a sigh of relief. I know that people are being taken care of well.”
Cope gives her classmate (and then-boyfriend) John “Jack” Schmidt ’75 all the credit for the idea. “We were eating in the Waterman Cafeteria—it doesn’t exist anymore—and he showed up at dinner with a whole bunch of catalogs for all the equipment you need for an ambulance. He threw them down on the table and he’s like, ‘we gotta start a rescue squad.’”
Cope wasn’t sure. “Do we need this?” she wondered. But during that time, several arson fires tore through Burlington, “taking down the Cathedral of St Paul's, the Catholic cathedral, the Mayfair Store on Church Street, one of the theaters. They were huge fires,” Cope recalls. “We felt like Burlington Rescue was alone—and UVM students, we could help.” Cope, Schmidt, and their friend Stacey Lazarus ’75 soon were taking some of the very first EMT classes offered in Vermont and making a case to the university’s leadership for buying an ambulance. “We thought, for sure, they would just say, ‘you freshmen, like, you silly kids?’ But they took us seriously,” Cope says.
In July 1972, after months of planning, “we picked up the new truck,” Cope says. “Jack drove, I was in the back, Stacey was in the passenger seat; it was a crazy feeling. We went down Shelburne Road, running the lights, testing the siren. We wore white
lab coats because we didn’t know what our uniform was going to be.”
A few days later, they got their first emergency call. “It was another big fire. It was terrifying. We were still in our lab coats and we had absolutely no equipment in our truck at all—like not even a BandAid. But we had a license to transport,” Cope recalls. “One of the firefighters said, ‘bring this guy to the hospital.’ And they threw open the back doors, we pulled out our gurney, strapped this guy in, and we did lights and sirens up to the hospital.”
UVM Rescue was launched that fall semester of 1972—a 100%-student-led ambulance service, staffed 24-hours-aday, 7-days-a-week, year-round—“for fifty years,” Cope says. Schmidt was the first director of operations, Lazarus was the first training officer—and Cope was the first personnel officer and first woman on UVM Rescue.
The ambulance was stored in the barn behind Wheeler House, at the time the Wasson Infirmary, near the corner of Prospect and Main Street. When an emergency call would come in, “we’d jump into combat boots, with zippers in them, and run down the icy stairs from the infirmary,” Lazarus recalls. “You had to have wheels out of the garage in under a minute.”
Cope is like generations of students who join UVM Rescue when she says, “It changed me. It gave me a place because I didn't have a place in my life at that time. It gave me a constant set of friends I could rely on and that I knew needed to rely on me, every shift, every day, with every call. You have to work together, you have to rely on each other.”
Cope survived a traumatic childhood— and directed her teenager energy to helping other people. “My grandmother was a huge influence on me,” Cope says. “She said ‘if you see something that could make a situation better, could help another human, then help. Don’t just walk by and think someone else is going to make it better. You are.’ And that’s why I—we— started UVM Rescue.” VERMONT | The Vermont General Assembly’s Omnibus Appropriations bill, signed into law in June by Governor Phil Scott, appropriates an additional $10 million to the University of Vermont.
The additional investment—together with UVM President Suresh Garimella’s commitment to keeping tuition frozen for a fourth consecutive year—bolsters efforts to keep UVM affordable to families in Vermont.
UVM allocates about half of the state’s current $42.5 million appropriation to help meet the financial needs of students, reducing the amount of debt students acquire. Vermonters graduating from UVM carry debt significantly below the national average. Approximately 45% of undergraduate students from Vermont attend the university tuition-free.
The other half of the state’s appropriation directly supports UVM Extension programs in all 14 counties of the state as well as medical education. “It’s hard to find any community within the borders of Vermont that isn’t somehow connected to our growing engagement efforts,” said Garimella. In 2020, Garimella launched the Office of Engagement, which specifically focuses on building and sustaining partnerships that will grow the economy and connect entrepreneurs with innovations and talent at UVM.
Garimella said the increase in the appropriation is a sign of the state’s willingness to further invest in UVM, which in turn benefits the state. Garimella pointed out some of the ways UVM serves as an economic engine: Each year, more than 1,000 UVM graduates choose to stay in Vermont, leading to a measurable brain gain. Nearly 36,000 UVM alumni live and work in Vermont, a significant portion of the total workforce, many of whom are current or future business leaders. UVM attracts $250 million in extramural support for advanced research. The university’s growing research portfolio builds the state’s intellectual and social capital, attracting talent to Vermont and sparking further innovation. UVM spurs approximately $1.33 billion of direct and indirect economic impact based on the most recent study. UVM is the second-largest employer in the state, with annual payroll over $300 million.
