Roya Ensafi, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, has been named an inaugural Digital Lab Fellow by Consumer Reports, with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The 2020-21 cohort consists of five public interest technology researchers from around the world, working on a 10 month collaboration with support and a stipend. As a fellow, Ensafi will… Read More »
The kinesiology students in Scientific Inquiry Using Wearable Technology class represent one of four groups that came to campus to experience the lab-based course that uses the latest technology to study how movement and function impact health. The experiment the team designed uses a Bioharness3 worn as a chest strap, a Biostrap worn on the arm (new technology… Read More »
A fractal is a pattern that repeats itself at different scales and is ideal for modeling nature. But modern computer scientists aren’t the only ones to use fractals—Africans have been using them for centuries to design textiles, sculptures, architecture, hairstyles and more. U-M professor Ron Eglash is widely known for his work in the field of ethnomathematics—particularly for… Read More »
A new, cutting-edge academic unit at UM-Flint will open in 2021 that will educate and prepare students for key roles in the diverse technical career fields of the 21st century. The U-M Board of Regents enthusiastically approved the establishment of the new College of Innovation & Technology at its Sept. 17 meeting. UM-Flint will join a small group… Read More »
Mark Guzdial, professor in computer science, wants more people to have access to the power of programming, so he has proposed a new way to engage high school students: integrate the use of purpose-built computer science tools that include programming into history courses. Under a new grant from the National Science Foundation, Guzdial is working with high school… Read More »
Two U-M researchers are steadily building their young company, SkyGig, to bring the next generation of high-speed wireless connectivity to the 5G ecosystem, satellite communications (Satcom), and beyond. Since founding the company in 2019, co-founders Armin Jam and Avish Kosari have attracted $1M in new funding and are now expanding their team to accelerate development and commercialization of… Read More »
New York-based high school teacher Sean Swider knew he had to develop a creative project to keep his advanced history students engaged, especially after a transition to remote learning. Swider then discovered the U-M role-playing simulation tool ViewPoint and decided to simulate an oil spill disaster. Modeled after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska, Swider created the… Read More »
For the last two years, a project team of the U-M Library I.T. Division has been working on the redesign of the library’s primary website at lib.umich.edu, which launched in July. It features new technology infrastructure, designs, and information architecture, as well as fully rewritten content. “The response to the new site has been overwhelmingly positive,” writes project lead… Read More »
A field of study called human pose estimation focuses on teaching AI to identify how a person in an image or video is positioned. However, current models typically use videos with an entire person fully in view. Of the huge libraries of video content uploaded to public websites, only around 4% ever show an entire person. New research… Read More »
Google.org announced that a team of School of Information (UMSI) researchers has been selected to receive funding as part of the company’s efforts to support projects using innovative artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics to help understand COVID-19 and address its impacts. Faculty members Tiffany Veinot, Vinod Vydiswaran, Lorraine Buis, and Anna Laurie will receive $200,000 in funds to… Read More »
A 3D bioengineered model of lung tissue built by U-M researchers is poking holes in decades worth of flat, Petri dish observations into how the deadly disease pulmonary fibrosis progresses. Some clinicians are concerned that critically ill COVID-19 patients may develop a form of pulmonary fibrosis after a long stay in the ICU. Researchers are searching for better treatments.… Read More »
In the course “Cybersecurity for Future Leaders” (EECS 498 / PUBPOL 475), students will gain a better understanding of the science, technology, public policy, and national security considerations behind cybersecurity in order to protect the very tenets of democracy. Election security will be one of the course’s six focus areas this fall 2020. The course is taught from… Read More »
In a new Center for Academic Innovation Teach-Out, Ben Nimmo, director of investigations at Graphika, an online social media monitoring company, outlines tactics everyday people can use to anticipate, spot, and react to disinformation from potential “threat actors.” He calls it the “Four D’s” — Dismiss, Distract, Distort, and Dismay. The Disinformation, Misinformation, and Fake News Teach-Out helps people understand the… Read More »
Although federal privacy laws prohibit digital platforms from storing and sharing children’s personal information without verifiable parental consent, a study led by U-M researchers finds that those rules aren’t always enforced, and privacy violations are most likely to affect children from lower-education households. Children raised by parents without college degrees showed two to three times higher rates of… Read More »
Solar storms and other space weather events have the potential to impact society on a national or global scale. U-M researchers lead two multimillion-dollar projects to improve forecasting by developing next-generation space weather modeling software. Funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA, the U-M projects aim to accurately predict solar storms and coronal mass ejections and to… Read More »
Melissa Haskell, an ECE postdoctoral researcher, was awarded the Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Individual National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health for her work using machine learning to improve functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Many factors, including movement, can affect the quality of an fMRI, which is used to measure and study brain activity. Haskell works to… Read More »
For developing technology that’s helping to democratize the justice system while decreasing the spread of COVID-19, U-M law professor J.J. Prescott has earned this year’s Distinguished University Innovator Award. Prescott launched the U-M Online Court Project years ago to design and build technology to help people resolve minor disputes with the government and courts online and without the… Read More »
U-M senior Sabrina Corsetti‘s efforts to model the pandemic’s spread using a machine learning algorithm has now been included in those being aggregated for the CDC’s weekly projections. Corsetti had her previous research halted when U-M suspended in-person classes and labs back in March. Thomas Schwarz, one of Corsetti’s research professors, happened to be modeling the pandemic’s data… Read More »
Michigan Medicine is constantly looking for ways to improve the patient experience, even during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. One way the organization is doing just that is by optimizing eCheck-in and introducing mobile arrival, touchless processes that allow patients to skip the line when they arrive for an appointment. The changes launched on August 26. Prior to an… Read More »
Videogame development is a hot topic at Michigan. This summer two teams of U-M undergrads, working remotely because of the Covid-19 outbreak, conceived, designed, and developed two videogames: Desolation Place—a 3D first-person stealth horror game, and Bloom: Tome of Power—a first person shooter inspired by genre defining games such as DOOM, Hexen, and Dusk. Advised by CSE lecturer… Read More »