Spinal Cord Injury Research on the Translational Spectrum (SCIRTS … – Yale School of Medicine

The Craig H. Neilsen Foundation is inviting applications for its Spinal Cord Injury Research on the Translational Spectrum (SCIRTS) grants program. Through the program, grants will be awarded to novel approaches to improving function and developing curative therapies after SCI. SCIRTS Grants support research projects that include but are not limited to the following areas:

Three types of grants will be awarded:

Postdoctoral Fellowships: Grants of $100,00 per year for up to two years will be awarded to encourage early-career training and specialization in spinal cord injury research.

Pilot Research Grants: Grants of up to $200,000 per year for up to two years will be awarded to establish new investigators in spinal cord injury research and assume the risk inherent when established investigators undertake new directions in their work.

Senior Research Grants: Grants of up to $800,000 over up to three years will be awarded to encourage senior-level investigators to expand the scope of their work into new directions through targeted studies with high potential to move the field forward.

Eligible candidates must have a doctoral or equivalent terminal degree such as an MD, DVM, or PhD and conduct research at a nonprofit academic and/or research institution or rehabilitation facility in the United States or Canada.

Letters of intent must be received by June 9, 2023, at 5:00 p.m. ET. Upon review, selected applicants will be invited to submit a full application, due November 10, 2023, at 5:00 p.m. ET.

For complete program instructions and application instructions, see the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation website. Link to complete RFP

Please contact Melissa Hey (melissa.cobleigh@yale.edu) in the Office of Development if you are interested in applying.

Submitted by Isabella Backman on May 10, 2023

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Spinal Cord Injury Research on the Translational Spectrum (SCIRTS ... - Yale School of Medicine

Pill could be alternative to Ozempic, used to increase or decrease hunger – Insider

The ingestible, electronic fluid-wicking capsule for active stimulation and hormone modulation (FLASH). NYU Tandon School of Engineering

Ozempic, the blockbuster diabetes and weight loss drug, works by mimicking a hormone people produce to feel full. But what if instead of artificially mimicking a hunger hormone, you could stimulate one we already have?

Scientists at NYU are creating anappetite-regulating pill that works by sending electronic pulses out in the stomach, triggering our natural stores of ghrelin a gut hormone that makes people feel hungry. If successful, this technology could be swallowed by patients who are struggling to eat, triggering their natural urge to nibble. People undergoing cancer treatmentor other issues that can make it hard to want to eat, like ARFID (avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder), are some of the groups that could initially be helped by this tool.

The reverse is theoretically also true researchers speculate the same technology could one day be harnessed in a slightly different way to stop people from feeling hungry if they struggle with overeating.

The pill has only been tested in pigs so far, but NYU Assistant Professor Khalil Ramadi, a bioengineering expert who helped invent the new pill, told Insider that the tech after it is safely manufactured for people and OK'd by the US Food and Drug Administration could be tried out in humans within the next five years.

"It's fundamentally a new concept for how we can treat disease," Ramadi said. Without any drugs or surgery, "we can actually increase hunger promoting hormones," just by stimulating the ones the body already has on board.

The pill is essentially a bit of electronic coil that delivers electronic stimulation only when it comes in contact with gastric juices in the stomach. It's wrapped inside a special coating that is designed to pop off once it touches gastric fluids, turning the pill on for about 20 to 30 minutes, and stimulating the hunger-increasing hormone ghrelin.

Giles Yeo, a professor of neuroscience at Cambridge who studies how brains control body weight, told Insider the idea is a "wonderful concept." Yeo was not involved in creating the pill.

"The concept of manipulating gut hormones I think is a good one, in either direction increase or decrease," he said.

Both Yeo and Ramadi say it's easy to imagine such an appetite-stimulating pill working in reverse: Making an appetite-suppressing therapy like Ozempic, but without any drugs involved. Ramadi imagines a future electric pill competing with Ozempic by stimulating the vagus nerve in the area of the lower chest where the esophagus meets the stomach, a technique that's alreadybeen shown to blunt hunger signals in patients who have had that nerve stimulated surgically.

Yeo suggested, alternatively, that a pill could be dispatched further down in the body, beyond the stomach and inside the gut, where more of our appetite-suppressing hormones hang out.

There are still many challenges that scientists need to work out before such a pill will be ready for swallowing by humans.

Any electrical stimulation to the stomach, esophagus, or intestines has to be very precisely targeted. Otherwise, it's possible that the hunger-increasing and hunger-decreasing hormones comingling in our stomachs could just cancel each other out, doing nothing at all to change our appetites. On top of that, the pill's side effects still need to be worked out gut hormones are very sensitive, and if you excite them too much you can end up with vomiting or explosive diarrhea.

Another issue is that the pill isn't really biodegradable, so it's not technically a flushable, marketable design yet. In its current state, people would either have to take the pill in a controlled setting like a hospital, where their stool can be collected, or they'd have to fish their electric pill out of the toilet afterwards, a rather unappealing process.

But if the pill is ultimately successful as an appetite-suppressant, Yeo imagined it could be one more tool in the "arsenal" of newfound appetite drugs, like Ozempic and Mounjaro.

"Maybe I'm someone that needs to lose a few pounds," he said. "So I don't need a big drug in me, I just need to feel a little bit less hungry, for the next month."

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Student Speakers will Impart Words of Wisdom at Commencement … – University of California, Merced

Two undergraduate student speakers will share their journeys and insights with UC Merceds graduating class and their families and friends at two commencement ceremonies to be held this weekend.

Gehad Elhanafy, a bioengineering major from Merced, will speak at the May 13 ceremony for the schools of Natural Sciences and Engineering.

During her time on campus, she served two terms as the internal vice president of the Associated Students of UC Merced and as president of the Muslim Students Association. Additionally, she conducted research in the Victor Muoz group as a Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines NSF-CREST Fellow. Additionally, she worked as an intellectual property intern for the Office of Research and Economic Development.

In 2021,Elhanafyreceived the Distinguished Volunteer Scholarshipfrom the University Friends Circle for her community service work.

Looking back to 2013, when I first arrived in the United States and didn't know a word of English, to now having the opportunity to be the commencement speaker is an achievement that represents my struggles and triumphs, she said. My journey and success are a testament to the continued support I felt from my parents, and the community I built in Merced, especially at UC Merced.

It will be an absolute honor to share with my fellow graduates what being a Bobcat means to me and how it has left a lasting impression on my life, she said.

Through the Community Engagement Centers Projects with Purpose program, Elhanafy completed four summer internships.

I worked with the community to encourage engagement in a time where social disconnection and limited resources were prevalent, she said. UC Merceds efforts in serving the community are reflected in my work to ensure that my community and I carried this mentality for my remaining three years both internally and externally.

After graduation, Elhanafy will apply to law school to pursue corporate law to help contribute to the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem at UC Merced and in the Central Valley.

Kimberly Farias, a first-generation Mexican American student from Madera who double majored in political science and psychology, will speak at the May 14 ceremony for School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts graduates.

While at UC Merced, Farias was a lead resident assistant of four residence halls, a member of the International Honors Society in Psychology Psi Chi, and a member of Phi Alpha Delta Professional Law Fraternity where she served as treasurer and community service chair. She also interned at the External Affairs Office of Governor Gavin Newsom.

She participated in research with Professor Courtenay Conrads Political Science Lab and Professor Linda Camerons Health Communication Interventions Lab. She also received a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Center and she had two of her research papers published in UC Merceds Undergraduate Research Journal.

It is a tremendous privilege for me to be selected as the commencement speaker. I am deeply grateful for this chance to address my fellow classmates and the UC Merced community, and to share the incredible ways in which UC Merced has contributed to my personal, academic growth and achievements. Farias said. I want to thank my family, specifically my mother. Gracias mami por todo tu apoyo incondicional, por tus sabios consejos y por estar siempre presente. No habra logrado esto sin ti. Te quiero mucho y esto es para ti.

I would also like to extend my gratitude to my UC Merced professors, Dr. Courtney Conrad and Dr. Linda Cameron; thank you for always believing in me and for all your endless support and mentorship.

After graduation, Farias plans to attend graduate school to earn a Ph.D. in political science and then pursue law school.

I hope to use my education and experiences to serve and advocate for underrepresented minority communities and first-generation students, she said.

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Student Speakers will Impart Words of Wisdom at Commencement ... - University of California, Merced

Scientists learn puppetry to help showcase their work in fighting … – Portsmouth News

They began training in the performance art last year as a way to engage young people in bioengineering projects and encourage them to pursue a career in science.

Workshops took place in the city and Bognor Regis with the Portsmouth Young Carers Centre, The Makers Guild, Making Theatre, and local secondary school students.

The aim was to promote the work being done at the universitys Centre for Enzyme Innovation (CEI), which is researching solutions to the problem of global plastic pollution.

Brooke Wain, second year PhD student, said: It has been striking to see the impact of bringing together science and the creative arts to explain some really complicated research. Exploring various creative techniques to describe our scientific research in a digestible and accessible way has not only been fun but has shown to be really effective!

The Puppets as Enzyme Engineers of the Imagination project was one of 23 to receive an Ingenious award by the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Senior lecturer in the school of art, design and performance at the University of Portsmouth, Dr Matt Smith, has led the workshops. He said: Our workshops have given researchers and engineers the confidence to better connect with the public. Not only have they learnt puppetry, but theyve also walked away with the communication and presentation skills needed to share their stories, passion, and expertise.

The showcase is at White Swan Studios, Portsmouth, on Tuesday, May 23, from 6-8pm. Free tickets here: eventbrite.co.uk.

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Scientists learn puppetry to help showcase their work in fighting ... - Portsmouth News

Morning Coffee: The innocuous messages that can get you fired at Bank of America. Credit Suisse really needs to keep this junior banker -…

By now, the industry has more or less got the message about messaging the regulators dont like it if you use WhatsApp on your personal phone, or any other system that doesnt allow your communications to be archived and searched. It seems like a fairly straightforward lesson, and it only cost the biggest Wall Street firms a bit more than a hundred million dollars each. But putting this principle into action is going to be more difficult than expected.

For example, what if you were to text, With you in five minutes, Im running late. Its OK to send a trivial update like that by text message, surely? In the words of the compliance officers tasked with answering questions about Bank of Americas new communications policy, Absolutely not.

According to the new rules, you arent allowed to use your personal phone for any communication with a colleague, client, vendor or broker. You arent allowed to use WhatsApp, Signal, SnapChat or similar apps at all for such communications and (somewhat inexplicably since it is archived anyway) you arent allowed to install Bloomberg Anywhere on your personal phone either. Presumably, when the boomers and millennials of compliance discover that voice memos are the new thing, those will be banned too.

Effectively this means that personal phones are absolutely prohibited for anything vaguely work related and that people who fall into the gray area of work/non-work must be addressed through a traceable work device. It means that everyone at BoA, and quite possibly other big banks too when they update their rules, has to carry their work phone around with them all the time if they dont want to be completely incommunicado. Bankers who had been in the habit of giving their personal number to the very top clients might even need two work phones, one regular and one batphone. Look out for man-bags and jackets designed with extra pockets to be in fashion in Manhattan and Docklands next year.

In principle, the policy has an exception for things which would be plainly obvious to a third party as purely personal. But it would be a brave employee that wanted to test the system with a high risk communication like grande hazelnut ty or happy birthday darling x to a colleague.

It's that last category of messages which is obviously going to cause the problems, of course. People in the industry, like people in Industry, have relationships with each other which go beyond regulated professional activities. Its even been known for bankers to get married to colleagues, clients, brokers and vendors and to consequently communicate with them by means other than approved internal messaging and Bloomberg Chat. People dont want their personal life to be searchable by their employer, and they dont make the neat separation between aspects of their life that would be needed for this policy to be workable.

And so its likely that bankers will end up doing what they did when mobile phones were banned from trading floors; try not to be too blatant, but basically ignore it. The WhatsApp groups where prices were discussed and deal terms negotiated are likely to be gone (or at least, to move to in-person conversations in cafes and corridors), but its not realistic or credible for anyone to threaten dire consequences for texting see you there and a winkie emoji.

Elsewhere, 27-year-old Credit Suisse VP David Israel is being profiled in a 25 under 35 feature for his importance to the non-agency mortgage bond trading team which hes worked on for five years. Hes a former bioengineering student and debate champ who apparently uses his communications skills to summarize new developments in this notoriously complicated and risky market for his clients.

It would be interesting to know if senior CS management have seen this feature, and more generally if theyve been sending out love to younger bankers like David. The securitized products group is a real dilemma for CS its risky enough to take up a lot of capital, but so profitable that its hard to justify getting rid of it. Previously, its been suggested that outside capital could be brought in to preserve the value of the franchise.

But thats only going to be possible in the context of a viable business, and the key to that arguably even more so than the rainmaking MDs will be to keep the young and energetic employees who represent the future of the franchise. In other words, people like David Israel. It might not be a great bonus year at CS this year, but even in that context, it might be cheap at the price to reassure this particular VP that hes going to be looked after.

Meanwhile

Jefferies is the first of the US banks to report, and the results confirm that its not been a great quarter or year for deals. Rich Handler is unbowed, though they continue to invest toward further growth, most notably in investment banking (Bloomberg)

Citi has set a target to raise the proportion of Black employees in the UK to 3% over the next three years (Financial News)

One of the reasons Morgan Stanley gave for firing its head of FX options last year was use of a non-firm approved communication platform. They also made statements in the relevant FINRA declaration that related to involvement in mismarking by other traders; these have been found to have been defamatory and so the whole entry is going to be expunged and replaced. (Bloomberg)

Some interesting quotes from a student newspaper about how young people see the banking industry. I was willing to make that sacrifice because I knew [that] once I had that internship I was set, Im happy to work hard the first few years out of college and They only last for two to three years maximum, and they pay back later when you get a job with more flexibility when it really matters suggest that future analyst and associate classes will still be looking for work-life balance. (The Dartmouth)

Are they really quiet quitting, or are they overemployed? It seems that some people, particularly in the tech sector, have taken advantage of remote working arrangements to accept a new job without giving up their old one, and as long as they deliver an acceptable amount of work to both, nobody notices. (WIRED)

There was bound to be a Netflix Original about the Gamestop short squeeze, and now there is (Esquire)

Click here to create a profile on eFinancialCareers. Make yourself visible to recruiters hiring for jobs where WhatsApps can be sent through regulated channels.

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment youd like to share? Contact:sbutcher@efinancialcareers.comin the first instance. Whatsapp/Signal/Telegram also available (Telegram: @SarahButcher)

Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will unless its offensive or libelous (in which case it wont.)

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UTA teams up to grow biotech workforce – News Center – The University of Texas at Arlington – uta.edu

Wednesday, Sep 28, 2022 Neph Rivera : Contact

Gabriela Wilson (left) and Jon Weidanz

The University of Texas at Arlington is playing a key role in training the future of the biotech industry in North Texas.

Through an $8.8 million grant awarded to Dallas College by the U.S. Economic Development Administration, UTA will work with Collin College, Dallas College and Tarrant County College to create a new regional career training pathway in biotechnology, biomanufacturing and bioinformatics.

The partnership will create BioWorks for North Texas, an introductory boot camp to train 800 participants from historically underserved North Texas communities for entry-level biotech employment. UTA will recruit and train 100 of those participants while working with employers to develop biotech training and education programs.

We are excited to be part of this very important project that will enhance UTAs high visibility in biotechnology and health informatics, said Gabriela Wilson, professor of kinesiology, co-director of UTAs Multi-Interprofessional Center for Health Informatics (MICHI) and leader of UTAs BioWorks efforts. Through this industry-led project and our collaborative efforts, we will contribute to addressing systemic barriers to academic and workforce access and success by building targeted biotechnology training and employment opportunities in a growing industry sector in North Texas.

UTA will also leverage the resources of its Career Development Center, providing participants access to job and internship opportunities, organizing employer panels and hosting students on-site to learn about workforce culture and gain hands-on experience.

This grant demonstrates both UTAs commitment to growing the biotech sector here in North Texas and its collaborative spirit and desire to work with other institutions in our region, said Jon Weidanz, associate vice president of research, professor of kinesiology and bioengineering, and director of MICHIs biotechnology and systems biology division. The funding will, in part, provide resources for UTA and MICHI to develop biotech training programs and train a technically competent workforce.

Seven major North Texas health care employers, including UT Southwestern Medical Center, Childrens Health Medical Center and McKesson, have already committed to hiring 1,100 entry-level biotech workers, providing living wages along with health care, retirement and other benefits.

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Want to Invest Like Cathie Wood? Use These 3 Principles. – The Motley Fool

Cathie Wood's ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK -0.18%) is known for its aggressive bets on the cutting-edge companies of tomorrow. Between its holdings in lesser-known businesses with big potential, like Ginkgo Bioworks(DNA -0.32%), and its investments in more familiar names like Tesla(TSLA -1.10%), there's a lot to appreciate about Wood's approach to buying stocks.

While her flagship ETF is underperforming the market over the last three years, her investing style is worth learning about because it's a great contrast to other famous investors like Warren Buffett. In particular, there are three principles Wood uses to select stocks that you'll benefit from understanding, so let's dive in.

The pillar of Cathie Wood's approach to investing with her company ARK Invest is to find businesses that are creating disruptive innovations. Disruptive innovations, in her conception, can take several forms, including technologies that significantly slash costs, technologies that change more than one industry or geographical region, and breakthroughs that enable other follow-on innovations in a handful of different product segments.

In practice, that means she invests these days in a lot of companies that are competing in artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous vehicles, DNA sequencing, energy storage, 3D printing, and blockchain technology.Focusing on potentially disruptive innovators explicitly means not paying much attention to entrenched competitors. It means investing in players that are pioneering new business models or pioneering new fields entirely.

Take Ginkgo Bioworks, for instance. Its idea is to use robotics and other forms of automation to streamline the process of designing and manufacturing custom-built microorganisms for use in the biotechnology, agriculture, and food industries, among others. Management claims that with its expertise in automation, it'll be able to benefit from economies of scale that drive down costs compared to other ways of accomplishing the same bioengineering and biomanufacturing tasks.

For the moment, Ginko Bioworks is unprofitable but rapidly growing. But if it succeeds, it'll be a favorite collaborator in multiple industries, and its stock will soar over the course of years. And that's why it's a Cathie Wood favorite.

Cathie Wood likes to invest in businesses that have the potential to become huge over the next three to five years or so as a result of their mastery of their markets, and enabled by disruptive innovations. In short, she doesn't much care for businesses that can make consistent and incremental progress on their earnings year after year as they're more likely to be less innovative competitors.

And exactly how big are the returns Wood is looking for? There's no single answer, but here's an example. In late August of this year, before Tesla's latest stock split, its price was near $891. A month before, in late July, Wood had set an ambitious price target: Tesla shares would be worth $4,600 by 2026. That means within three and a half years, she anticipated that shares would grow by around 416%.

Therefore, if you want to follow Cathie Wood's approach, look for businesses that could boom if their disruptive innovations are realized to their fullest potential.

It's officially part of ARK Invest's screening process to evaluate stock valuations. But evidence indicates that pricey valuations are seldom a deal breaker for Cathie Wood, and that other factors, like a company's potential to grow, are far more important when it comes to what makes the cut.

For example, in the first quarter of 2022, she bought shares of Tesla on numerous occasions. At the time, Tesla's trailing 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio was between 343 and 219. For reference, the market's average P/E since 1990 is a little over 23, so Tesla's valuation was (and still is) on the very high side in comparison. That doesn't deter Wood, though -- with the run-up she anticipates, it makes complete sense to keep buying shares of an "overpriced" stock.

So, if you want to invest like Cathie Wood, don't get fixated on valuations today. Tomorrow's valuations are far more important to whether your investment is profitable.

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Want to Invest Like Cathie Wood? Use These 3 Principles. - The Motley Fool

A new investment thesis for the Global South – Rest of World

I was pleasantly surprised by the reaction to last weeks newsletter, African and Latin American tech unite. Interestingly, it was mostly VCs who reached out, keen to signal what seems to be a new age in their investment theses.

Venture capital firms exist to go out on a limb and invest in innovative new solutions. Deep or frontier tech tends to grab headlines with its revolutionary breakthroughs in technologies that have not permeated our societies yet, like advanced AI or bioengineering.

Latin America and most emerging regions do not feature much in the global frontier tech discussion. A few honorable mentions exist: companies like NotCo, the Chilean biotech powerhouse, and Argentinas affordable satellite company, Satellogic. Both have notably reached the point where they have at least partially relocated to the U.S., Israel, or other regions to continue growing and acquiring the talent they need.

So why were many emerging market funds so interested in South-South investment?

In part, it is hard-nosed pragmatism. A developed frontier tech ecosystem in Latin America is a long way off. Hernn Fernndez Lamadrid, partner at Angel Ventures, a Mexican VC firm, believes the government needs to take a lead in further stimulating R&D, but Latin Americas state investment in that sector is still miniscule. Worse still, Rob Ryan, founder of Latin America-U.S.-focused relationship capital firm GrowthHax, worries that, in Mexico, publicly funded research is banned from being commercialized, decoupling innovation from investment.

Latin American investors are thus left to focus on adapting preexisting tech. Luckily for them, the market for basic technological solutions is huge and growing, so VCs have turned their attention to countries with similar demographics and problems. Thats how you get Mexican used-car unicorn Kavaks expansion to Turkey. It is also what incentivized the Mexican-South African founding team of FlexClub, a car subscription service for delivery drivers, to use their recent VC investment to expand across the Atlantic and not within their own regions.

But, South-South technological cooperation and co-investment is also an opportunity that goes beyond a few VCs bottom lines. By testing their products and adapting their technologies to similar markets beyond their own regional neighborhoods, companies can grow at a greater pace while helping bridge the technological divide within these countries.

It bears remembering that famous tech companies, like Uber, or Colombias last-mile delivery unicorn, Rappi, often start out mixing and matching existing technologies only to grow large enough to innovate further on their own account. A counterintuitive but intriguing backdoor path to innovation.

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UH Mnoa engineering programs earn accreditation | University of Hawaii System News – University of Hawaii

College of Engineering students and members of Team Hklele prepare for a rocket competition in 2021.

Engineering programs at the University of Hawaii at Mnoa have been accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), confirming that they meet standards essential to prepare graduates to enter STEM fields in the global workforce.

The following programs are accredited:

In addition, construction engineering, which was launched in fall 2019 by the College of Engineering, retroactively earned accreditation from October 2019.

We are extremely excited about our accreditation renewals as well as our newest accredited degree program in construction engineering, College of Engineering Dean Brennon Morioka said. This is a clear indication of the confidence ABET has in the hard work by our faculty and staff in providing the kind of educational experience and development of professional skills our students will need to be productive and highly skilled engineers and leaders upon graduation.

SOEST Interim Dean Chip Fletcher added, These programs have been accredited because they are readily accessible to Hawaiis high school graduates, provide excellent education opportunities, and are globally recognized for cutting-edge research on issues that matter to the people of Hawaii.

The rigorous ABET accreditation process ensures the quality of our biological engineering degree program, which is a critical component of CTAHRs transdisciplinary approach to deliver sustainable food systems and ecosystem health solutions to the people of Hawaii, CTAHR Interim Dean Ania Wieczorek said. I thank the biological engineering students, faculty, alumni, industry partners, and the UH Mnoa ABET team for their work to achieve this result.

For the accreditation process, UH Mnoa faculty and staff completed an extensive self-study and hosted a site visit with an ABET accreditation team in November 2021.

According to ABET, graduates from an ABET-accredited program have a solid educational foundation and are capable of leading the way in innovation, emerging technologies, and in anticipating the welfare and safety needs of the public. To date, ABET has accredited 4,361 programs at 850 colleges and universities in 41 countries.

For more about ABET and its accreditation criteria, visit ABETs website.

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UH Mnoa engineering programs earn accreditation | University of Hawaii System News - University of Hawaii

EEE PhD student awarded Graduate Teaching Assistant of the Year – Imperial College London

The Faculty of Engineering presented its Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) Of The Year award at the staff BBQ last week.

The annual award recognises the integral role our GTAs perform within the Faculty, and offers an incentive for GTAs to strive for excellence in their teaching. Each year, all engineering departments select their top GTA, and from these nominees the Faculty chooses an overall winner.

Eugenie Ducoin from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering was named overall winner of the award for 2022, and Georgia Smith, Department of Bioengineering, received the highly commended award.

Eugenie completed her undergraduate studies in our department in 2019 and is now pursuing a PhD in power electronics.

Nominating staff Professor Tim Green and Dr Phil Clemow praised Eugenie as a vital member of their teamon our Power Electronics and Power Systems module.

They commended her for her pro-active engagement with undergraduates, as well as her subject knowledge and the appreciation of students learning styles which have been essential in helping design, test and refine lab experiments.

Eugenie's nomination highlights her dedication to the student experience, and her thoughtful and approachable teaching methods in both the lab and problem class sessions.

Professor Green said: Eugenies passion for our subject is evident to all, and combined with her careful and caring approach to teaching, her contributions are highly valued by our students.

"She has a quiet confidence in the teaching setting, and is highly approachable and listens well to students as they explain their workings or difficulties. She responds with a thoughtful and assuring style to give students just enough help to get started again on the problem, and adeptly adjusts her responses to the needs of the student, either just giving gentle hints or going back to the fundamentals.

Eugenie is keen to pass on her love of the subject to our undergraduates, she explains:

Students sometimes shy away from power electronics because they find the subject uninteresting or irrelevant, but it is essential to solving the environmental challenges of today and tomorrow. Being a GTA both in the lab and in class has allowed me to share my passion, and I will never tire of seeing the excitement of students when they begin to understand a topic. I hope I have encouraged some students to pursue power engineering the same way Professor Green and the lab GTAs inspired me when I was an undergraduate.

Teaching has also helped me to communicate and share my research more effectively, as I have learnt from explaining something in several different ways to fit each students learning style. I recommend all PhD students to get involved in teaching; it might surprise them how rewarding it is.

I am very grateful for the recognition that winning this award represents. With the invaluable help of Professor Tim Green and Dr Phil Clemow, I have improved my teaching skills over the past three years, and I am glad to have received such appreciation from the Faculty of Engineering.

Our congratulations to Eugenie and all this year's nominees from across the Faculty.

Find out more aboutgraduate teaching assistants.

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Autonomous, other tech disrupting the agricultural industry – TweakTown

Autonomous technology and automation are proving disruptive across numerous verticals, including the agriculture industry. Cutting-edge solutions such as driverless tractors, Internet of Things (IoT) temperature and moisture sensors, GPS, and drone technology allow farmers to be far more efficient than if the technologies weren't made available to them.

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Although the future appears bright, there are a few issues that need to be addressed, including risk management, legislation, and safety protocols. Safety is a significant area of concern, as farming can be inherently dangerous - but rapid advancement in technology could create potential safety risks for human workers sharing their work environment with these newer technologies.

As noted by Dr. Salah Issa, assistant professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's Agricultural & Biological Engineering Department: "The introduction of mechanization in agriculture in the early 1900s transformed farms and surrounding communities. We expect digital technologies to lead to a similar transformation on farms and in many rural areas."

To discuss how technology is disrupting the agricultural industry, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will host the Safety for Emerging Robotics and Autonomous Agriculture (SAFER AG) workshop November 9-10.

Much of the innovative solutions are still in the research and testing phase, so there is room to adjust before they're commercially available. Every product designed to be labor-saving offers both opportunities and possible concerns, which is what the workshop is designed to discuss - pros and cons of the ongoing changes are fair game.

The agricultural robot market is expected to reach almost $36 billion by 2030, as their use expands to cover a wider range of day-to-day activities. Everything from irrigation management, harvesting crops, soil management, dairy management, and other tasks become automated to assist farmers become more productive while tending to their crops and livestock.

In addition to reducing physical human effort, these robots can lower production costs, increase crop yield, and maximize crop quality.

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Company Founded by Harvard Researchers to Launch Alternative Meat Product | News – Harvard Crimson

Tender Foods, a food technology startup co-founded by four Harvard-affiliated researchers that produces alternative meats, is preparing for a product launch later this year.

The company, which produces plant-based meat spun from liquid polymers, is one of 27 startups launched in fiscal year 2021 to commercialize innovations from Harvard research labs. Tender Foods specializes in products that have a unique texture, structure, and ultimately taste, according to its founders.

A lot of the stuff that tries to mimic meat is textured, but its not fibrous, so its aligned and its a block of stuff, but its not individual fibers, said Luke A. MacQueen, one of the startups co-founders and a Harvard postdoctoral researcher in Bioengineering.

The Tender Foods products will better mimic the texture of real meat, MacQueen said.

MacQueen co-founded the company alongside three other Harvard affiliates: Bioengineering and Applied Physics professor Kevin K. Kit Parker, Grant M. Gonzalez 13, and SEAS researcher Christophe Chantre.

The fibers in Tender Foods meat are made using technology developed by Parker and his colleagues. The research group studied rotary jet-spinning, which uses centrifugal force to elongate liquid polymers into fibers. MacQueen likened the device to a cotton candy machine that works with different kinds of proteins.

The technology was initially used for various other purposes, including organ regeneration: in 2017, the researchers managed to spin nanofibers into biocompatible heart valves. Two years later, they showed the same could be done with gelatin scaffolds to hold animal muscle cells.

Every lesson learned from building tissues for regenerative medicine was applicable to building tissue to eat, Parker wrote in an email.

MacQueen said he is excited to see the variety of meats that might emerge from the startups technology.

When those fibers are spun and collected into a system, they can be tailored to be like the meat products people enjoy, whether they be as simple as a chicken breast or much more complicated layered structures, he said. Those can all be made in an artisanal way, starting with this very basic building block.

The research received funding from the Harvard Office of Technology Development and Harvards Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

The first efforts to patent discoveries from my lab pertaining to meat were shot down by OTD around 2006, Parker wrote. We kept pushing.

MacQueen said he is excited to introduce Tender Foods products to the public.

As a young startup, weve had to kind of stay under the radar a little bit, but theres good things coming down the road, he said.

I ate some this morning, Parker added in an email. It was delicious.

Staff writer Felicia He can be reached at felicia.he@thecrimson.com.

Staff writer James R. Jolin can be reached at james.jolin@thecrimson.com.

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Company Founded by Harvard Researchers to Launch Alternative Meat Product | News - Harvard Crimson

Know What You Want To Achieve Fluence CEO Cautions Companies Against Adopting Just Any Technology For T – Benzinga

CEO of Fluence Bioengineering Inc. has cautioned cannabis growers against adopting just any technology for their business.

According to David Cohen, who was speaking at this years Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference in Chicago, growers should first identify what they want to do and achieve before settling on the right technology for their business.

Theres all kinds of data acquisition and analytics now available for a grower. You have to analyze millions of data points and make decisions, he urged.

Fluence, which operates as a business unit within Signifys Digital Solutions division, creates powerful and energy-efficient LED lighting solutions for commercial crop production and research applications.

The company is a leading LED lighting supplier in the global cannabis market and is committed to enabling more efficient crop production with the worlds top vertical farms, and greenhouse produce growers.

When Fluence first started, it was really convincing people that LED technology was a way to go. There were a lot of HPS grow lights out in the world, and it was just starting to come to be affordable but also showing growers that by using a different type of technology to grow the plants, they could actually get more out of what they were getting, Cohen said.

Interested in learning more about the Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference? Get more information here.

This post contains sponsored advertising content. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice.

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NovaXS Biotech raises $1.5M to make injection therapy needle-free – Yahoo Singapore News

A startup spawned from a lab at the University of California, Berkeley has won investor support to work on its patented needle-free injector, which it hopes can make therapies that traditionally require daily self-administered medicines less painful.

NovaXS Biotech, founded by 21-year-old Berkeley researcher Alina Su in 2020, recently closed a $1.5 million seed round led by Lei Ming, an angel investor known for co-founding Chinese search giant Baidu in 1999. Other investors included Chinese venture capital firms Taihill Venture and NewGen VC as well as American ones: Courtyard Ventures, a fund focused on UC Berkeley startups, MHub Impact Fund, an innovation hub based out of Chicago, medical device maker Baxter, and Edward Elmhurst Health, an integrated health system in Illinois.

NovaXS's injection gun, which patients can snuggly hold in their hand, can push biologics into the body's subcutaneous and intramuscular level within 0.3 seconds using liquid pressure. The device also comes with a cloud-based platform that collects patient information for physicians, like injection time, frequency, dosage volume, and medication temperature.

The startup has found two early use cases already -- in vitro fertilization and drug delivery for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Su is particularly passionate about the treatment of the latter. DMD, an inherited disease caused by defects in a gene that encodes the protein critical to muscle functions, can put patients in wheelchairs by the age of 12. There is an existing FDA-approved solution that uses an Adeno-associated virus (AAV) to deliver modified genetic material to cells impacted, but the treatment can potentially generate adverse side effects.

Recent advancement in gene-editing technology has given the once incurable disease new hope, though much needs to be done to actually turn the lab work into commercially viable solutions. That's what NovaXS aspires to do, with Su bringing her bioengineering professor Irina Conboy's gene-editing CRISPR therapies to DMD patients using the startup's needle-less injector.

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"Many large pharmaceutical companies lack the incentive to fund IVF or rare disease R&D because these specific markets have limited patients. On the other hand, smaller companies are lacking the resources to tackle such daunting tasks," said Su.

NovaXS is targeting gene therapy and IVF at the initial phase because Su believes they have "the biggest potential to acquire a large market share." It's also planning to work on other diseases that require in-home injections, such as diabetes and growth hormone disorders in children.

With the seed capital infusion, NovaX plans to work on the safety and stability of its products, apply for FDA clearance, and put together its core management team.

Originally from China, Su's other goal is to bring DMD gene therapies to her home country. The startup will still be headquartered in the US but conducting clinical trials for the DMD treatment in China, where local governments are luring foreign and returning science and technology talents with attractive money and policy support.

Unlike in contested arenas like semiconductors and artificial intelligence, where tech transfers between the US and China are increasingly restricted, Su reckoned that in medicines and healthcare, the two superpowers are incentivized to collaborate because of a larger pool of clinical data is the basic staple of medical advancements.

"We don't want our research to just get published in Nature. We want it to be helping people in real life," Su said.

The business prospects of cutting-edge and still evolving technology like gene editing therapies can be hard to predict, and the Theranos saga has only made venture capitalists more prudent about esoteric medicines. But Su saw a silver lining.

"The problem of Theranos isn't its business but its science. We are not short of great scientists, but we don't have enough medical talent who also understands business. We hope to fill the gap."

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NovaXS Biotech raises $1.5M to make injection therapy needle-free - Yahoo Singapore News

Insights on Prenyl Acetate Market: Facts, Figures and Trends 2020-2028 by Symrise, BASF, International Flavors & Fragrances, De Monchy Aromatics,…

The report on Prenyl Acetate Market added by Affluence provides a complete briefing on strategic recommendations, trends, segmentation, use case analysis, competitive intelligence, global and regional forecast to 2028. The objective of this research is to provide a 360 holistic view of the Prenyl Acetate market and bringing insights that can help stakeholders identify the opportunities as well as challenges. The report provides the market size in terms of value and volume of the Global Prenyl Acetate Market.

The analyst studied various companies like Symrise, BASF, International Flavors & Fragrances, De Monchy Aromatics, Yancheng Hongtai Bioengineering, Yancheng Chaina Biotechnology, etc. to understand the products and/services relevant to the Prenyl Acetate market. The report includes information such as gross revenue, production and consumption, average product price, and market shares of key players. Other factors such as competitive analysis and trends, mergers & acquisitions, and expansion strategies have been included in the report. This will enable the existing competitors and new entrants to understand the competitive scenario to plan future strategies.

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What’s in a name? – The challenge of finding the future workforce in mining – CIM Magazine

In the past year as President of CIM, Ive had the privilege of engaging in multiple conversations with industry leaders. In these conversations, Ive asked them what their main challenges are. Consistently, availability of talent comes out as the number one challenge.

This is, of course, not surprising to anyone reading this magazine. The anecdotal evidence is everywhere, and it is not limited to technical professionals. It spans the full lifecycle of metals production from drillers on the exploration front to technicians in the concentrators and refineries. This is supported by research completed by Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MiHR). MiHR tracks 70 selected occupations, which are considered the most relevant to the mining industry, and in its 2019 labour market survey, Canadian companies indicated that there were 1,820 unfilled vacancies in these categories across the country. With increased industry activity and the growing demand for decarbonization metals, that number has surely increased. MiHR also tracks Canadian university enrolment in the key industry engineering disciplines (metallurgical engineering, mining engineering, geological engineering). All three have seen significant reductions in the past five years and the negative trend continues.

The continued decrease in mining-related enrolment is in spite of the millions of dollars the industry has spent trying to communicate the positive benefits of mining to attract students. Every mining industry association and institute across Canada and the globe has developed programs promoting mining to students and to society in general. Generally, these programs have not moved the dial.

My view, which is admittedly a controversial view, is that the word mining does not reflect what we do and is a brand too damaged to save. Legacy perceptions combined with modern reality TV shows that portray mining as an old dirty industry are making it almost impossible to change societys views. Our infographics on how many metals can be found in a cell phone or an electric car are just not resonating. Is it time for a rebrand?

Lets start with the Cambridge Dictionary definition of mining: the industry or activity of removing substances such as coal or metal from the ground by digging. Is this really what we do? Real estate developers, highway builders, tunnelling contractors all remove substances from the ground by digging. Are they calling themselves miners?

Now, lets look at the definition of branding: the activity of connecting a product with a particular name, symbol, etc., or with particular features or ideas, in order to make people recognize and want to buy it. Branding helps shape peoples perceptions of companies, their products, or individuals.

The mining brand is connected to digging holes and blasting Yukon riverbanks in search of gravity gold. Who wants to buy that brand? Not me.

The reality is that we are an industry that develops and deploys advanced technology in the search for, and the production of minerals and metals. We utilize ground penetrating radar, magnetic resonance, artificial intelligence, scanning electron microscopes, LIDAR, X-ray fluorescence, complex mathematical and financial modelling, bioengineering and 3D design software to name just a few. We also build and operate some of the most powerful machines on the planet and we build complex multi-billion-dollar projects in some of the harshest environments on the globe.

We do all of these things with the final goal of producing the minerals we need to grow our food and the metals we need to sustain our modern way of life, including the metals required to decarbonize our economy in a race against climate change. If we are to attract the future workforce, we need to rebrand as high-tech producers of minerals and metals.

This simple action will not solve all our problems, but I believe it is a necessary first step in building positive and attractive perceptions of our industry.

P.S. As this is my last Presidents note, I would like to thank the amazing staff at CIM. The pandemic created historical challenges for CIM. The team persevered with equal parts passion, skill and professionalism to ensure the continuation of this exceptional Canadian institution.

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What's in a name? - The challenge of finding the future workforce in mining - CIM Magazine

Supporting corporate innovation at every size | Waterloo News – The Iron Warrior

The University of Waterloo has a long history of supporting corporate innovation through talent and partnerships, like the Rogers 5G partnership, and through support systems such as the Velocity incubator.

While 74 per cent of Velocity startups have one or more founders that studied or worked at the University of Waterloo, Velocity also attracts global startups. In 2021, the incubator, which can accommodate up to 20 new companies per year, received more than 200 qualified applications.

Velocitys connectivity with the University of Waterloo is one of the incubators key strengths. The University of Waterloo streamlines engagement with amazing students and renowned research groups while Velocity supplies founders with funding, business connections, expert advice and space to quickly and cost-effectively turn prototypes into scalable businesses, says Adrien Ct, executive director at Velocity.

Able Innovations, one of Velocitys portfolio companies, is solving the painful and labour intensive process of patient transfers by developing robotic technology that enables effortless, single-caregiver, safe and dignified transfers. Jayiesh Singh, Co-Founder and CEO of Able Innovations, met Colin Russell, Waterloos managing director, partnerships, while Colin was leading Waterloos Centre for Bioengineering & Biotechnology (CBB). Through Russell and the CBB, Singh connected with experts, investors and partners, such as the Research Institute for Aging. He also hired several co-op students from Waterloo some later joined the company as full-time staff and eventually landed $50,000 from the Velocity Fund and Velocity Health Tech Fund, and an invitation to join the incubator.

Through Velocity, Able was able to grow its network of advisors, mentors as well as the extended network of aligned investors and commercial partners, Singh says. The high quality of the Velocity network has helped Able substantially in its journey thus far.

Proximity to the University of Waterloo was key to Able Innovations growth. The team is currently working closely with Professor Amir Khajepour, who leads another autonomous vehicle project: WATonobus.

Rogers is working with Waterloo to realize the business potential of their 5G network and real-time computer resources. Waterloos research is building the technology that makes it possible. Able is working with both partners to realize the business potential of their technology, Russell says. I saw Able grow from a digital concept to a working prototype to building a company that will eventually provide healthcare facilities with fleets of autonomous devices that will support a more sustainable health-care environment.

This collaboration leverages the ground-breaking work with WATonobus and aims to integrate it into healthcare facilities through integration with the ALTA Platform. The ALTA Platform is an autonomous bed that will transfer supine patients who need to be moved from bed to stretcher or stretcher to imaging table in healthcare facilities. Lifting and transporting of patients involves a considerable amount of time and physical labour. While the task of patient transfer is challenging, it is necessary and provides great opportunity for automation. In an industry currently experiencing staff turn-over and high burn-out rates, exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic, technologies like ALTA could help solve worker shortages and provide safer, better care and improve health outcomes for both patients and health-care professionals.

By supporting companies like Able Innovations with access to research, corporate partnerships, funding and space to build and scale their technologies at Velocity, the University of Waterloo is helping strengthen Canadas healthcare tech ecosystem.

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SKUAST-K to hold international conference on regenerative medicine – Rising Kashmir

Srinagar, Apr 26: Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir in association with the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and the University of Kashmir is organising a two-day international conference on Recent Advances in Biomedical Sciences and Regenerative Medicine (RABSRM 2022) on May 6&7.

The conference is being organised as part of the Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) programme, Ministry of Education (MoE), Government of India, that aims at improving the research ecosystem of Indias higher educational institutions. Department of Science and Technology, GoI& World Bank-ICAR funded National Agricultural Higher Education Project for the institutional development of SKUAST-K are also supporting the event.

Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering, IIT Kanpur; Division of Animal Biotechnology, SKUAST-K; and Centre for Interdisciplinary Research and Innovations, KU are jointly organising the event to be held at SKUAST-K, Shalimar campus and KU campus, Hazratbal on May 6&7 respectively.

To review the preparations for the international conference, a meeting was held at SKUAST-K under the chairmanship of Director Research, Sarfaraz Ahmad Wani and Dean Faculty of Veterinary Sciences, MT Banday in which scientists, faculty members and organisers of the conference participated.

The mega-conference is being held under the patronage of VC KU Prof Talat Ahmad and VC SKUAST-K Prof Nazir AhamdGanai. Prof Ganai, in his message, highlighted the importance of the conference in the present scientific era and hoped that it will provide an opportunity to discuss and deliberate on the issues shared across related fields concerning the improvement in life and working of mankind.

The RABSRM 2022 conference aims to bring together experts, researchers, young scientists and academicians from around the world to disseminate knowledge from interdisciplinary backgrounds. The knowledge provided by the eminent speakers and researchers will help to foster the research culture in the area of biomedical sciences and regenerative medicine at the universities of Jammu and Kashmir and around the country. The conference will provide an opportunity to discuss recent developments in biomedical research in health and diseases and foster future directions in drug discovery and therapeutic interventions. The themes of the conference include Bioengineering, Regenerative Medicine, Cancer Biology, Drug Design and Delivery, Vaccine Biology, Tissue Engineering, Biomaterials, Molecular Therapeutics, Animal Biotechnology, Stem Cell Gene Therapy & Biomarkers.

The conference solicits contributions of abstracts for oral/poster presentations that address themes and topics of the conference. Participants are required to submit their research abstracts online. Students/Postdocs/Faculties can submit abstracts describing original and unpublished results in all the areas of Biomedical Science and Medicine and are invited for the presentation at the conference after the acceptance. The template of the abstract can be found on the website: http://www.rabsrm.org. Among the leading National and International scientists participating in the two days event include the names of Jukka Seppl from Aalto University, Finland, Andreas Nssler from Univesity of Tuebingen, Germany, JouniPartenan Aalto University, Finland and Hanna Isaksson from Lund University, Sweden as Key International Invited Speakers for the event.

The event will be one of its rear kind in this part of the world where the professionals across diverse disciplines will be deliberating on the theme interrelated across all the steams of concern. The event is expected to host renowned professionals from various national and international organisations for the two days here at Srinagar.

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Class of 2022 President’s Engagement, Innovation, and Sustainability Prize Winners – Almanac

Class of 2022 Presidents Engagement, Innovation, and Sustainability Prize Winners

On April 20, University of Pennsylvania Interim President Wendell Pritchett announced the recipients of the 2022 Presidents Engagement, Innovation, and Sustainability Prizes. Awarded annually, the prizes empower Penn students to design and undertake post-graduation projects that make a positive, lasting difference in the world. Each Prize-winning project will receive $100,000, as well as a $50,000 living stipend per team member.

Five seniors were named recipients of the 2022 Presidents Engagement prize. They are Rowana Miller and Manoj Simha for Cosmic Writers and Seungkwon Son, Max Strickberger, and Sam Strickberger for College Green Ventures. Two seniors have received the Presidents Innovation Prize: William Kohler Danon and Lukas Achilles Yancopoulos for Grapevine. Three seniors and two December 2021 graduates received the inaugural Presidents Sustainability Prize. They are Saif Khawaja for Shinkei Systems; Sarah Beth Gleeson, Shoshana Weintraub, and Julia Yan for EcoSPIN; and Eli Moraru for The Community Grocer.

This years prize recipients have selflessly dedicated themselves to improving environmental, health, and educational outcomes for others, said Provost Pritchett. From empowering young people through free creative writing education to building robotics that minimize fish waste to reducing microfiber pollution in the ocean, these outstanding and inspiring projects exemplify the vision and passion of our Penn students, who are deeply committed to making a positive difference in the world.

The 2022 prize recipientsselected from an applicant pool of 71 peoplewill spend the next year implementing the following projects:

Rowana Miller and Manoj Simha for Cosmic Writers: Ms. Miller, a sociology major in the College of Arts and Sciences from New York City, and Mr. Simha, an economics major in the Wharton School from Seattle, will provide equitable opportunities for free creative writing education to K-12 students across the United States, available regardless of socioeconomic background. Their nonprofit, Cosmic Writers, is a transformative tool for developing literacy, communication skills, and a passion for words. They are mentored by Al Filreis, the Kelly Family Professor of English in the School of Arts and Sciences.

Seungkwon Son, Max Strickberger, and Sam Strickberger for College Green Ventures: Mr. Son, a double major in business analytics in the Wharton School and psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences from Allentown, Pennsylvania, along with Max Strickberger, an English major in the College, and Sam Strickberger, an intellectual history major in the College, both from Chevy Chase, Maryland, will build out College Green Ventures, an organization that aims to be a centralized hub for supporting student social entrepreneurs and creating more of them. They are mentored by Tyler Wry, an associate professor of management in the Wharton School.

William Kohler Danon and Lukas Achilles Yancopoulos for Grapevine: Mr. Danon, a history major in the College from Miami, and Mr. Yancopoulos, an environmental studies major in the College of Arts and Sciences and a bioengineering major in the School of Engineering and Applied Science from Yorktown Heights, New York, will work to increase resilience across the healthcare supply chain, with a particular focus on small-to-medium businesses. Grapevine builds upon Mr. Danon and Mr. Yancopouloss inspiring work with Pandemic Relief Supply, a venture that delivered $20 million worth of healthcare supplies to frontline workers at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. They are mentored by David F. Meaney, the Solomon R. Pollack Professor of Bioengineering and senior associate dean of Penn Engineering.

Saif Khawaja for Shinkei Systems: Mr. Khawaja, a December 2021 graduate of the Wharton School from Dubai, will continue to grow his startup, Shinkei Systems, which builds robotics that minimize fish waste and multiply shelf-life. Shinkeis robotics automate humane Japanese slaughter techniquessimilar to kosher or halal practices for cattleto ensure that every fish makes it to a plate at top quality. Mr. Khawaja is mentored by Jacqueline Kirtley, an assistant professor of management in the Wharton School.

Sarah Beth Gleeson, Shoshana Weintraub, and Julia Yan for EcoSPIN: Ms. Gleeson, from Lexington, Kentucky; Ms Weintraub, from Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania; and Ms. Yan, from Cary, North Carolina; are materials science and engineering majors in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. They are pioneering EcoSPIN, an innovative device that captures microfibers at their laundry point source, protecting oceans and waterways. They are mentored by Karen I. Winey, the Harold Pender Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in the department of chemical and biomolecular engineering in Penn Engineering.

Eli Moraru for The Community Grocer: Mr. Moraru, a December 2021 graduate of the College of Arts and Sciences from Washington, D.C., will continue to work on The Community Grocer, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization reimagining nutritional assistance to promote health equity and fight food insecurity. He is mentored by Akira Drake Rodriguez, an assistant professor in the Stuart Weitzman School of Designs department of city and regional planning.

This years finalists also included the following seniors: Bema Boateng for Project Reignite the Light, a program designed to improve mental health literacy in Ghana; Hector Cure and Saskia Wright for Accin para la Reincorporacin Profesional, a program to help demobilized women in Colombia; and Joshua Kim, John Ta, and Myahn Walker for CommuniHealth, a community health care partnership in Philadelphia.

These inspiring projects exemplify the wide range of interests that energize our great Penn students and faculty, said Interim Provost Beth A. Winkelstein. They aim to make a tangible difference in peoples lives, bringing our shared commitments to social justice, intellectual creativity, and entrepreneurial drive to some of the worlds most urgent challenges. We are indebted to the faculty advisors and the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships, who worked closely with our students to develop their exciting and innovative initiatives.

The prizes are generously supported by Emerita Trustee Judith Bollinger and William G. Bollinger, in honor of Ed Resovsky; Emerita Trustee Lee Spelman Doty and George E. Doty, Jr.; Emeritus Trustee James S. Riepe and Gail Petty Riepe; Trustee David Ertel and Beth Seidenberg Ertel; Trustee Ramanan Raghavendran; Wallis Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation; and an anonymous donor.

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Class of 2022 President's Engagement, Innovation, and Sustainability Prize Winners - Almanac