Month: January 2009

01/27/09

UM-Flint students to present at the American Chemical Society

UM-Flint undergraduates Anthony Vida, Alexander Findlater, Hyeonjin Cho, and Trisiani Affandi will be presenting results of their research projects at the American Chemical Society in Salt Lake City, Utah, March 21-24. 

Anthony will be presenting work from his project entitled “B-Amino acid conformational energies and solvent effect.” Alexander’s project is entitled “Ground and low-lying excited states of C2O4.”  Hyeonjin (or Katie, as she likes to be called) will present her work on “Theoretical studies of peptide nucleic acid (PNA) monomers”. Finally, Trisiani will present her work on “Ground state and low-lying exciting states of NIC2.” Dr. Jie Song is serving as faculty advisor for all four students.

Congratulations Anthony, Alexander, Katie, and Trisiani!

01/23/09

UM-Flint student to present at NCUR

University of Michigan-Flint Honors student Cameron Waites will present his paper at the 23rd annual National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) at the University of Wisconsin – LaCrosse on April 16-18, 2009. In doing so, Cameron will become the first student from the UM-Flint campus to ever present at the event. Dr. Maureen Thum is his advisor.

Waites’ paper “Pathetic Fool Or Political Operator: The Role of Polonius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet” explores the role of one of the playwright’s most misunderstood characters. The paper looks to examine how Shakespeare used Polonius as, according to Waites, “an astute manipulator who puts politics before personal relationships.” 

As an NCUR presenter, Waites will have 15 minutes to present his paper, in addition to a five minute session for responding to audience questions.

Established in 1987, NCUR has consistently been one of the largest national conferences for promoting undergraduate research, creative, and scholastic achievement. This three-day event draws thousands of visitors each year as well as hundreds of talented students representing over 400 colleges and universities nationally. Additonal information about NCUR can be found at http://www.ncur.org/.

Congratulations Cameron!

01/15/09

UM-Flint student publication featured

CSCAR consultant and doctoral student Brady West and UROP student Madhur Lamsal recently had a co-authored piece featured in both the New York Times, the Kansas City star, and the Ann Arbor News.  Brady and Madhur developed a statistical model for rating college football teams, leading to a paper “A New Application of Linear Modeling in the Prediction of College Football Bowl Outcomes and the Development of Team Ratings”, published in the Journal of Qualitative Analysis in Sports.

Congratulations Brady and Madhur!

01/13/09

Updated U-M Policy on ownership of student inventions

The language in the Tech Transfer Policy (SPG 303.4) concerning the ownership of student inventions has been updated to better reflect U-M’s existing student ownership practice and our commitment to student entrepreneurship.  The earlier Policy language provided that the University would claim ownership if the student was either an employee OR created the invention with “direct or indirect support of U-M-administered funds.” The new policy states that U-M will claim ownership of inventions ONLY when created in a student’s capacity as an employee (and where the invention relates to their employment).  Thus, any student-created invention, other than one made via employment or pursuant to a voluntary written assignment to the University, will belong to the student.

It is hoped this change in policy language will be attractive to students who should now feel free to bring their ideas into the campus setting without the perceived risk of U-M claiming ownership.  Direct comments or questions to:  Kenneth J. Nisbet, Executive Director U-M Tech Transfer, 734.763.0614, [email protected].