University-wide

What does an Institutional Review Board do?

lblouin — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 17:41:36 +0000

What does an Institutional Review Board do? lblouin Mon, 06/30/2025 - 13:41

Faculty research is a time-consuming endeavor — even in the planning stages. Researchers have to invest hundreds of hours in finding good ideas, vetting them for originality, researching funding programs, writing proposals and hiring research assistants. And for any study that involves human subjects, researchers have one more to-do: Submitting their project to be reviewed by someone from one of two main Institutional Review Boards at U-M — or possibly the entire board if the work involves tricky ethical issues. Elizabeth Molina, the U-M research compliance specialist with the IRB Health Sciences and Behavioral Sciences who handles all initial IRB review applications coming from faculty, postdocs and student researchers at ��-Dearborn, says IRB reviews involve carefully evaluating all aspects of a proposed research project. The goal is to make sure the methodology complies with federal and state regulations, ethical principles and U-M specific policies designed to protect the rights and welfare of human participants involved in research conducted by faculty, staff and students on U-M’s three campuses. An IRB will then give the researcher a green light or a rejection, or request changes to their project to bring it into compliance. Notably, an IRB always has a diverse mix of people, including non-scientists and community members, so that complicated issues can be evaluated from a variety of perspectives. Sometimes, if a study is reviewed by the full board, researchers and study teams are invited to the review sessions so they can work through tricky issues as a group.

In practice, Molina says her work with the IRB involves navigating a lot of nuances with consent and privacy issues. Sometimes, a review might be super quick. “The first thing we actually look for is if the work involves something that the IRB needs to review,” Molina says. “For example, if a faculty member wants to survey students in their class solely to inform their own teaching practice and not to generalize or disseminate the findings beyond their classroom, then IRB approval is not required,” Molina says. But if the faculty member envisions they might use the results down the road in a research project, then Molina would work with them to make sure they’re, say, obtaining consent in a way that complies with regulations. Depending on what a research survey is about, a review could get more or less involved. A survey asking people about what method they use to heat their homes would require a lower level of review. But if a researcher is asking people about a more sensitive subject, like their personal participation in illegal activity, then the methodology for collecting responses and how the researchers manage and present the data would have to be more carefully thought out. The goal is to ensure that nothing compromises a participant’s anonymity or inadvertently creates adverse consequences for the person.

Nuance is baked into Molina’s work. After all, it’s the nature of research to investigate novel territory, and tricky test cases are essentially how the boundaries of ethical systems get defined and refined. Moreover, while some IRB rules, like those regarding children in medical studies, are more specific, Molina says many regulations are intentionally broad and open to interpretation so they can be inclusive of a wide variety of cases. For straightforward projects, Molina can conduct a regulatory and administrative review of the application herself and communicate with the researcher or study team if she needs any additional information. If the research is “exempt,” meaning it’s research that presents minimal risk to participants and falls under specific exemption categories defined by regulations, then she can issue the approval once any issues are resolved. If a study does not meet any of the exemption categories, she refers it to another reviewer, typically an expert in the subject matter, who assesses the risk and can issue an approval. However, if the study presents more than minimal risk or there is a complicated ethical question, Molina will bring it to the IRB staff for discussion to confirm that it should go to the full board for review. The full board typically discusses three to five studies a month. Only the full board can issue a disapproval, which Molina says is rare.

There are all kinds of tricky situations, especially regarding consent. For example, Molina says if researchers want to observe people without their knowledge, or not tell a participant everything up front, the IRB would review the proposal carefully. In some cases, the IRB can approve a waiver or alteration of informed consent, but only if the study poses no more than minimal risk, doesn’t affect participants’ rights or welfare, and couldn’t be done otherwise. When possible, participants are debriefed afterward and given the option to withdraw their data once they know the full details of the study. However, Molina says there are rare cases where debriefing might actually cause more harm than good. “For example, if someone was included in a study for an embarrassing reason, or finds out they were part of a study without knowing, it could cause distress, lead to mistrust in the research process or the researchers, and discourage future participation,” she says. Moreover, if the research involves children or teenagers, the study team has to obtain consent from both the parents and the kid (referred to in the later case as “assent”). “But there may be circumstances where it would be risky to obtain parental consent,” Molina says. “Let’s say you wanted to talk with teenagers about their sexual orientation. Asking the parents if the child could participate in the research might be risky for that teenager. In situations like that, the researcher could request a waiver of parental permission, because the benefits of doing so could outweigh the risks.”

The gray areas and subtleties are essentially limitless. If a study involves observing people in a public space, that might not require consent, because people don’t have the same expectations of privacy. But if the setting were a semi-public space, like a workplace, that’s going to require a higher level of IRB review. “Or let’s say you’re recruiting participants in a public space, but you’re recruiting for an HPV study. Are participants going to feel comfortable coming to you, and are you taking steps to protect their privacy?” Molina says. Because there are so many nuances, Molina encourages researchers to reach out to talk through any questions they have before submitting their projects to the IRB for an official review. She also conducts monthly IRB “On-the-Road” sessions, where researchers can connect with her on Zoom to talk through issues, or even ask questions about the admittedly not-the-most-user-friendly eResearch software researchers use to submit their projects for review. “People often don’t know what they need to provide us, or what a particular question is asking, or the level of detail we need to provide an evaluation of risk,” she says. “Or, for approved standard studies, they might not know that if they change something on their flyer or their consent form, even something that seems small, like changing your phone number or adding a QR code, that requires an amendment. So a conversation clarifies that. That’s one reason I do the On-the-Road sessions. That way, people can meet me and see that I’m not intimidating. I’m not the police. You can tell me about your challenges and we can try to figure them out together.”

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Want to learn more about what the IRB does and its review process? Check out the IRB Health Sciences and Behavioral Sciences website. Have questions for Molina about an upcoming project? Faculty and students can reach out directly at molinael@umich.edu or attend an upcoming IRB On-the-Road session.

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Mon, 06/30/2025 - 17:40

If a research study involves human subjects, it has to go through an Institutional Review Board evaluation. But ��-Dearborn’s IRB liaison, Elizabeth Molina, wants faculty, staff and students to see her as a partner, not the ethics police.

Elizabeth Molina, a U-M research compliance specialist with the IRB Health Sciences and Behavioral Sciences, handles all initial IRB application reviews coming from faculty, postdocs and student researchers on the ��-Dearborn campus.

Big changes, familiar faces

lblouin — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 12:08:32 +0000

Big changes, familiar faces lblouin Mon, 06/30/2025 - 08:08

When Santa Ono announced on Sunday, May 4 that he was stepping down as president of the University of Michigan, it came as a surprise to most. Even fewer people would have predicted the cascade of leadership changes that would roll through ��-Dearborn in the coming days. By Wednesday that week, ��-Dearborn Chancellor Domenico Grasso had been tapped to serve as U-M's interim president, which prompted Grasso to schedule a conversation with ��-Dearborn Provost Gabriella Scarlatta. At that meeting, Scarlatta recalls Grasso matter-of-factly informing her that he’d “like (her) to be interim chancellor.” For a split second, Scarlatta says she wasn’t sure she felt ready. “Of course, I was shocked. But then I got taken over by incredible pride, knowing that our chancellor was going to be president,” she says. “This is only good for Dearborn. So, of course, I’m going to do it. It’s going to put us on the map.”

Scarlatta’s move to interim chancellor set off a wave of leadership changes. Shortly after her conversation with Grasso, she called College of Engineering and Computer Science Dean Ghassan Kridli, who was en route to his son-in-law’s medical school graduation at Wayne State University, to ask him to take over as interim provost. Kridli said ‘yes,’ which left a vacancy at the top of CECS. Armen Zakarian, vice provost for research and dean of graduate studies, stepped up to take that spot, after which Joan Remski, associate provost for faculty development and digital learning, was asked to fill Zakarian’s role. Stein Brunvand, associate dean and director of graduate programs for the College of Education, Health and Human Services, agreed to step into Remski’s position, with Professor of Education Susan Everett filling Brunvand’s post. Then, in another twist, Vice Chancellor for External Relations Ken Kettenbeil shared that he would be going to Ann Arbor as well, to serve as a senior advisor for Grasso’s interim term. Casandra Ulbrich, vice chancellor for institutional advancement, raised her hand to temporarily head ER, while continuing in her current role. And Director of Marketing and Digital Strategy Bailey Ayers-Korpal and Director of Communications Kristin Palm took on additional responsibilities in ER. Rima Berry-Hung, senior director of human resources, also assumed additional duties as senior advisor to the chancellor, along with her current role.

On paper, that sounds like a lot of leadership churn. But both Kridli and Scarlatta say that everything has gone very smoothly thus far — something they attribute to the fact that everyone in the ��-Dearborn leadership team is very used to working together. They both cheekily pointed out that neither one of them had to get a new boss. “I’m happy and proud that we can handle this internally, and I think it says a lot that everyone essentially said, ‘Yes, of course, for Dearborn,’” Scarlatta says. “So we’re all helping each other and cheering for each other. Plus, we’re all thinking, it’s only for a year, so we can all do it.”

Scarlatta says the current plan is that everyone will return to their previous roles once a new chancellor is named and that the transition would likely happen in spring or summer 2026. She adds that she intends to give her next 11 months or so on the job everything she’s got. In some ways, she says the chancellor’s role is taking her out of her comfort zone. In particular, she notes how “external facing and Ann Arbor facing” her new position is compared to the provost’s. She’s now the one attending weekly leadership meetings in Ann Arbor, communicating with the regents and flying across the country to meet with alumni and donors. On campus, she’s bringing her highly collaborative style to the senior leadership meetings and plans to continue her “Walk and Talk” events so anyone from the campus community can share ideas directly with her. Scarlatta says she’s frankly been a little surprised by how much the new role seems to suit her, given how much she enjoyed the more behind-the-scenes vibe as provost.

Scarlatta and Kridli also know that sitting back and simply keeping the trains running on time until the next chancellor arrives isn’t really an option. The current national political environment has created a swirl of unpredictability in higher education on a variety of fronts. Right now, Scarlatta and Kridli are particularly attentive to cuts to federal research funding and the challenges facing international students. “We worked for years to obtain R2 status, and now we’re there. So how do we sustain that as NSF funding is being slashed?” Kridli says. “It’s also an issue of faculty morale. They’re working hard but maybe they’re not able to get the results they expected. So we need to be thinking about a different paradigm and figure out how to evaluate and reward them given this new environment. They’re not going to be punished because of politics — absolutely not.” In practice, Scarlatta and Kridli say that means things like supporting faculty if they need to pivot to a different research focus, which can take time. Or helping them find other ways they can use their expertise to make an impact, say, through community partnerships. “The question we can be asking ourselves is, how do we advance the reputation and standing of ��-Dearborn?” Kridli says. “And we can do it through published research, foundations, industry and community partnerships, and staying open to other approaches. The important thing is we make an impact.”

Scarlatta says, at least at the moment, international students, who make up approximately 10% of the student population at ��-Dearborn, have reason to be a bit more optimistic. In May, the Trump administration halted scheduling new visa interviews for international students. But recently, the administration reopened the process, albeit with new requirements that students must undergo reviews of their social media accounts. Scarlatta says her team isn’t taking anything for granted. Earlier this spring, the university began reaching out to international students to provide extra support, proactively informing them of changing federal policies and visa deadlines, as well as granting automatic deferment for students who aren’t able to get their paperwork in order by the start of the fall semester. Fortunately, Kridli says a recent survey revealed that the vast majority of respondents are still moving forward with their plans to study at ��-Dearborn in 2025-26. Kridli and Scarlatta say it will also be a priority to make sure both international students and domestic students, say, from immigrant communities, who might feel uneasy in the current political environment, feel at home on campus. “We should not tolerate aggression against anybody. We are all human beings first,” Kridli says. “There is a lot that feels beyond our control. But we control who we are and how we are with each other.”

Even if the politics were more hospitable, Scarlatta and Kridli say they would still have their hands full this year. The colleges are in the midst of a major initiative to expand online programs. The regents recently approved an expansion of the Go Blue Guarantee, which, along with other aid programs, would mean that 94% of ��-Dearborn undergraduate FTIAC students will receive enough aid that their remaining obligations, commonly met through loans or work-study, are less than $2,000 a year. And Kridli says every college needs to make preparations for the ever-expanding influence of artificial intelligence, which is rapidly reshaping the job market, particularly for entry-level positions sought by college graduates.

Given all this, Scarlatta and Kridli both think the ��-Dearborn community is fortunate to have a team of people at the helm who are caring and capable, know each other well, enjoy working together and remain committed to Grasso’s philosophy of “mission first, people always.” And, like many on campus, they are celebrating having the first ��-Dearborn chancellor in the president's office.

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Story by Lou Blouin

Administration & Governance

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Mon, 06/30/2025 - 12:06

Interim Chancellor Gabriella Scarlatta and Interim Provost Ghassan Kridli talk about the whirlwind of leadership changes at ��-Dearborn this spring and why the transition has been mostly smooth sailing.

In May, Gabriella Scarlatta (left) was named interim chancellor and Ghassan Kridli was named interim provost at ��-Dearborn.

Onsite composting is coming to ��-Dearborn

lblouin — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 15:28:42 +0000

Onsite composting is coming to ��-Dearborn lblouin Mon, 06/23/2025 - 11:28

��-Dearborn has been dipping its toe in the water with regard to composting for a few years now, with the addition of Zero Waste university events that collect food waste and send it to an offsite composting facility, a few office food waste collections and a composting system at the Community Organic Garden. And Assistant Sustainability Programs Manager Graces Maves says that a few years back, a student group even partnered with Picasso Restaurant Group, which operates the food service at the Renick University Center, to compost food waste coming out of its kitchen. Some logistical issues and the COVID pandemic cut that experiment short. But earlier this year, Maves and intern Bridget Lawson decided to revive the idea. Picasso was all about it. It turned out the kitchen’s executive chef, Dak Zorn, is an enthusiastic home composter and gardener, and he quickly added food scrap collection bins for the kitchen staff. At the end of the day, the bins are dumped into large outdoor containers, which are picked up weekly and the material is composted offsite.

Lawson, who was managing the day-to-day details of the project until her internship ended this spring, says the composting pilot has gone smoothly thus far. During a typical week, it diverts about 200 gallons of compostable food waste from the landfill, where it would otherwise generate methane, a climate-warming gas that’s about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Zorn says it’s also helped him reduce food waste upstream. “It gave me some insight into everyone's knife skills, because I could go through all of the cooks’ buckets to make sure we were using as much of the product as we should be,” Zorn says. “So it's a win-win. We're using more of the product, which helps keep costs down, and then on top of that, we're composting.”

Maves says she’s eagerly awaiting the next phase of this project. With help from a Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy grant, which Lawson spearheaded, they’ll soon be able to do the composting right here on campus — creating useful compost for the Community Organic Garden and a new hands-on venue for students to learn about waste reduction and soil science. Maves is still working out some of the details for the new composting site, but she says it will likely blend two composting techniques backyard composters are most familiar with — the tumbler and the multi-bin system. Every composting system needs a good balance of nitrogen and carbon. So as a first step, Maves says they’ll utilize a commercial-scale tumbler to create a uniform mix of nitrogen-rich food scraps from Picasso’s operations and carbon-rich leaves and wood chips from campus and the City of Dearborn’s Public Works department. Once the ingredients are well mixed, it’ll move on to the “aerated static pile” portion of the system. Maves says this is pretty similar to your typical three-pile backyard bin system, with a few tweaks. The material spends some time breaking down in the first pile, where fresh materials and high oxygen levels create optimal conditions for microbes. It then moves on to the second pile, where it decomposes further, before moving to a third pile, where microbial activity slows way down and the material becomes usable compost. Throughout this process, which typically takes three to five months, the microbes that break down the organic material require a healthy supply of oxygen. In a backyard system, a pile gets oxygenated through regular turning. In an aerated static pile system, oxygen is pumped into the pile via perforated pipes, which reduces the need for turning and helps the material break down more quickly. Maves says she is also working with the designer to make sure the piles can be moved by machinery or by hand — should volunteers want to get their hands dirty and learn about the process.

Maves anticipates that one of the biggest challenges of the new system may be getting enough of the right materials. As a fairly small restaurant operation, Picasso may not generate that much food waste. So she’s been thinking about ways to get more — like a potential partnership with the Dearborn farmers market, where residents could bring in their food scraps to be composted at the university. Maves is also exploring the possibility of collecting food waste from the Student Food Pantry now that the pantry has the capacity for more fresh food. “This would really showcase a closed-loop system, as the food waste from the pantry and yard waste from campus would create nutrient-rich soil for application in a student-led garden plot, where food is grown for the pantry,” Maves says. The carbon-rich material seems to be more abundant. Tree trimming and landscaping operations on campus generate quite a lot of wood chips, some of which are used on campus as mulch. But Maves’ contacts at the City of Dearborn say they have more wood mulch than they can handle if she ever needs more.

One of the goals of the new composting program is to reduce the amount of food waste sent to the landfill, which will cut some of the university’s Scope 3 emissions. She anticipates the larger impact may be educational. A biology professor has already reached out about using the site to teach his students about soil science. And she hopes it can also be integrated into kids’ programming at the Environmental Interpretive Center. “We could easily keep shipping our waste out to this offsite composting facility. But it wouldn’t have these hands-on learning benefits,” Maves says. “I mean, that’s the purpose of the institution: It’s to provide educational experiences and learning opportunities for our students and the community, and we think this is a great chance to do that.”

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Story by Lou Blouin

Experiential Learning

Nature or Environment

Sustainability

University-wide

Facilities Operations

Off

Mon, 06/23/2025 - 15:22

A pilot with Picasso Restaurant Group is paving the way for a new campus composting site, which will reduce the university’s climate-warming emissions and help students learn about soil science.

Executive Chef Dak Zorn has been helping collect food scraps from Picasso's restaurant in the Renick University Center. Right now, the material is composted offsite. But it will soon be composted on campus. Photo by Annie Barker

The Administration Building and Social Sciences Building are getting makeovers

lblouin — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 12:24:20 +0000

The Administration Building and Social Sciences Building are getting makeovers lblouin Wed, 04/23/2025 - 08:24

Moving the College of Business and College of Education, Health and Human Services, both now housed in the Fairlane Center, to the main campus is one of the key parts of ��-Dearborn’s current Comprehensive Campus Plan. If all goes according to schedule, the faculty and administrative staff from CEHHS will make a move to what’s now the Administration Building in time for the Fall 2026 semester. (The building will also likely get a new name!) By late the following year, COB plans to take up residence in a renovated Social Sciences Building, much of which has been vacant ever since the College of Arts, Sciences and Letters brought its social science faculty to the CASL building a couple years ago, though some classes are still taught there.

Facilities teams will be kicking off one of the first big steps in that process in just a few weeks when they relocate administrative staff from the AB to temporary offices in the SSB in order to make way for construction teams. Director of Facilities Planning and Construction Emily Hamilton, who’s overseeing both projects, characterizes this as a more “modest” renovation than the recent overhaul of the Renick University Center’s first floor. But like that project, one of the guiding principles is to do a lot more within the same amount of space. Business Affairs will consolidate Financial Services and Student Accounts into the existing suite. All other administrative departments within the AB — the Chancellor’s Office, Provost’s Office, Office of Research, External Relations, Institutional Advancement and Alumni Engagement, and Human Resources — will be consolidated into the east wing of the building, making the west wing available for CEHHS. Hamilton says to accomplish that, the design teams are taking advantage of hybrid and remote work schedules, a dramatic decrease in the need for paper file storage, and shared reception areas, which have left many units needing less physical space. This new administrative wing of the building is also gaining a kitchen, a flexible meeting room space, a few flex offices and a copy room, all of which can be used by any of the administrative units.

Most of the renovation budget is being funneled into the CEHHS wing of the building, where the plan calls for new faculty offices, a dean’s suite, a college-level advising office, two classrooms, open student collaboration and lounge spaces, and several multipurpose spaces that faculty and staff can use for meetings or lunch breaks. Hamilton says that if the budget allows, the team is also planning to update the underutilized open space in the middle of the building. Cosmetically, the interior is getting new paint, carpet, ceilings and some modern sliding office doors like those in the renovated RUC, which save a lot of space compared to conventional in-swing doors.

A rendering of an open collaboration area in the renovated Administration Building. Credit: Neumann/Smith Architecture

The renovation of the SSB is currently in the early design phase, but Hamilton says they’re already discussing some exciting renovation ideas. On the exterior, the east side of the building will be getting a new, more welcoming entry. And inside, the team will be rethinking the two auditoriums. In conjunction with the Registrar's Office, the facilities team recently completed a space utilization study and found that there is diminishing need for this once-quintessential style of college classroom. (She says COB doesn’t use this classroom style at all anymore.) In a portion of these spaces, the plan calls for removing every other row of fixed theater seating so the new wider terraces can host fixed tables and moveable chairs, suitable for case study use. The design team is also investigating making a portion of these rooms ground level to house the college’s labs, including its flagship Bloomberg Lab. Similar to the lab’s current location in the Fairlane Center, you can expect lots of glass, so passersby can look in on the action. The SSB’s main hallway will also be widened to carve out more informal hangout and collaboration spaces for students, as well as space for events.

With both the AB and SSB, Hamilton says the facilities team has collaborated closely with the colleges to create designs that best serve their needs. Work on the AB is currently out for bid and will begin this summer. Because the SSB is being used to temporarily house the administrative units, work won’t start on that project until the AB renovation is complete.

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Want to learn more about ��-Dearborn’s plans to reshape its physical campus? Check out our recent story on the Comprehensive Campus Plan. Story by Lou Blouin

Faculty and Staff

University-wide

College of Business

College of Education, Health, and Human Services

Facilities Planning

Off

Wed, 04/23/2025 - 12:16

It’s been two decades since all four of ��-Dearborn’s colleges were on the main campus. One of the first big steps in the plan to bring COB and CEHHS back is kicking off in June.

The Administration Building is set to become the new home of the College of Education, Health and Human Services. The renovation includes several new informal hangout and collaboration spaces for students. Rendering by Neumann/Smith Architecture

Spring 2025 Commencement: A guide to the big day

lblouin — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 11:58:30 +0000

Spring 2025 Commencement: A guide to the big day lblouin Wed, 04/02/2025 - 07:58

More than 1,000 graduates will earn degrees at next month’s commencement ceremony on April 26. As in past years, the full day of spring graduation festivities will be split into three ceremonies. Undergraduates from the College of Arts, Sciences and Letters and College of Business kick things off at 9 a.m., followed by undergrads from the College of Education, Health and Human Services and College of Engineering and Computer Science at 1 p.m. The final ceremony for doctoral and graduate students from all four colleges is at 5 p.m.

Here are a few more good-to-knows for the big day.

Speakers

James Scapa, a graduate of Columbia University and an ’83 U-M MBA grad, will be the featured speaker at both undergraduate ceremonies. Scapa is founder, chair and CEO of Altair, a global leader in computational intelligence software and technology. He founded the company in 1985 with two partners when he was just 25 years old. Altair now employs more than 3,000 scientists, engineers and creative thinkers across 28 countries and serves more than 16,000 customers across a broad range of industries, including automotive, aerospace, government and defense, finance, energy, technology, life sciences, architecture and construction. Under Scapa’s leadership, Altair also sponsored the #OnlyForward Scholarship, which awarded $25,000 scholarships to ��-Dearborn students pursuing a four-year degree in computer science or engineering.

Tim Yerdon, an executive leader with SAE Industry Technologies Consortia, will be the featured speaker at the 5 p.m. ceremony for graduate students. Yerdon is an experienced mobility leader with a track record of driving breakthrough technology change through collaboration and innovative thinking. He holds a key role within SAE International, a global association of more than 128,000 engineers and related technical experts in the automotive, aerospace and commercial vehicle industries. Prior to SAE, Tim ran the consulting firm Plymouth Technology Advisors, after serving in executive positions with Ford Motor Co. and Visteon Corp. At Ford, he served on the company's dedicated team for electric vehicles, which developed the Mustang Mach-E SUV, F-150 Lightning truck and E-Transit van. He also chairs ��-Dearborn’s CECS Industry Advisory Board.

Asil Khanafer, who is graduating with a Bachelor of Science in behavioral and biological sciences, with a minor in applied arts, is the student speaker at the two undergraduate ceremonies. During her time at ��-Dearborn, Khanafer was president of both the Pre-Professional Health Society and the Lebanese Diaspora Relief Organization, as well as vice president of the National Arab American Medical Association student chapter. In addition, she conducted research on bonobo cognition as a research assistant in Associate Professor of Psychology Francine Dollins’ lab. She also served as a chemistry and psychology supplemental instruction leader and vice chair of the Student Organization Allocation Council. Khanafer plans to pursue a career in veterinary medicine and will continue her studies at Michigan State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine in the fall.

Mohsen Chaaban, who is graduating from ��-Dearborn with a Master of Science in cybersecurity and information assurance, will address his fellow graduate students at the 5 p.m. ceremony. Chaaban earned his bachelor’s at ��-Dearborn in 2023 and currently works as a software controls engineer at General Motors. Throughout his time at the university, he actively engaged in student organizations and mentorship programs. During his undergraduate years, he was a member of Student Organization Account Services, where he helped student organizations with financial services and event planning. He has also been active in community service efforts in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights, taking part in initiatives such as toy drives, as well as Easter and Ramadan essential drives.

Commencement stats

This spring, the university is awarding a total of 1,067 degrees to 1,049 graduates. Among undergraduates, the youngest is just 17 years old and the oldest is 68. The average undergraduate GPA is 3.4. Spring graduates represent 26 Michigan counties and 13 states.

Tickets

Each student receives four tickets to their ceremony for guests. Graduating students participating in the ceremony do not need a ticket for themselves. Students can currently pick up tickets at the One Stop, located on the first floor of the Renick University Center, Monday-Wednesday and Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. and Thursday, 8 a.m.-7 p.m. Students must show their Mcard or government-issued ID (driver's license or passport) and a receipt that they purchased their cap and gown to pick up tickets. All guests at the commencement ceremonies must have a ticket, except for children under 2 who will be sitting on the lap of a guest. Tickets can also be placed at Will Call and picked up the day of the ceremony.

Students should email umd-commencement@umich.edu with the number of tickets they would like held (up to four). All tickets must be claimed (either picked up or Will Call request) by Friday, April 11. Those who don’t need all their tickets can pick up their tickets and give them to friends or classmates who need additional tickets. Students can also return tickets they will not need to the One Stop so other students can claim them. Students are not permitted to sell tickets. More information about extra tickets will be shared on Monday, April 14.

Volunteering

If you are a staff member and would like to volunteer at the ceremonies, please email Campus Event Planner Mandy Earl. Tasks include distributing Will Call tickets, checking in graduates, helping direct the crowd and other activities.

How to watch

If you won't be attending commencement in person, you can still watch online on the university’s YouTube page.

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Still have more questions about Spring 2025 Commencement? Check out the university’s commencement page. Story by Lou Blouin

Commencement

University-wide

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

College of Business

College of Education, Health, and Human Services

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Off

Wed, 04/02/2025 - 11:58

Meet the commencement speakers and get ceremony details for the April 26 festivities.

This spring, the university is awarding a total of 1,067 degrees to 1,049 graduates. Photo by Michigan Photography

How postdocs help faculty take research to another level

lblouin — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 16:34:51 +0000

How postdocs help faculty take research to another level lblouin Mon, 03/31/2025 - 12:34

When students complete a doctoral degree, they’re at the top of one of the highest mountains in higher education. But just like undergraduates facing post-graduation anxiety, postdoctoral life can represent a fraught time for recent PhD graduates. For those interested in long-term careers in academia, they’re likely embarking on job searches for highly competitive faculty positions. And if someone wants to work in the private sector, employers in at least some industries seem to balk at hiring highly trained applicants with little industry experience — simply because they generally command higher salaries than those with less-advanced degrees.

Director of Research Development Vessela Vassileva-Clarke
Photo by Julianne Lindsey

But there is another option for recent PhD grads: working as a postdoctoral researcher. As the name suggests, this is a research position at a university, typically lasting one to three years, that someone takes after they finish their PhD. ��-Dearborn Director of Research Development Vessela Vassileva-Clarke says this may be an attractive route for a number of reasons. For example, if a person isn’t quite sure whether they want to go into academia or industry, a postdoc position can simply buy someone a little time to figure it out, while they continue to stay active and build a research portfolio. And for those who are definitely interested in faculty positions, doing a postdoc can help someone burnish their CV if, say, they weren't able to publish as much as they’d liked during their PhD program. In addition, depending on the arrangement between the researcher and their faculty advisor, Vassileva-Clarke says a postdoc position might give someone a chance to log some teaching experience — or even pursue an externally funded grant for a research project that they co-lead with a faculty member. Moreover, a postdoc gives recent PhD grads experiences in other core parts of academic life that they may not have gotten in their doctoral programs, like proposal writing.

��-Dearborn currently has about a dozen postdoctoral researchers working on campus, the vast majority of whom are working with faculty in the College of Engineering and Computer Science. Rongheng Li, who finished his PhD at ��-Dearborn under Mechanical Engineering Professor Ben Q. Li in 2019, says the opportunity to do a postdoc actually grew organically out of his doctoral research experience. His research focused on some of the advanced mathematical challenges associated with the use of nanoparticles in photovoltaic systems, which is seen as a promising way of improving output from solar panels. But then one day, toward the end of his PhD program, Li found himself chatting with Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Xuan (Joe) Zhou. The two of them discovered that a lot of the same mathematical methods Li was using in the area of photovoltaics might have interesting applications for battery research, which is Zhou’s specialty. Now, as a postdoc, Li is working on several of Zhou’s funded projects, including one exploring how well used EV batteries perform when used in a grid-tied storage system.

“A lot of my prior work has been very theoretical, so working with Dr. Zhou is giving me a chance to learn in a more experimental setting,” Li says. “I’m learning new instrumentation, and I got to visit the clean room in Ann Arbor, where they are working on a variety of projects. So I think it’s going to be quite valuable for me to get this hands-on experience, including with batteries, which is a technology that’s so important for the future.” Another big payoff for Li: He’s getting to work closely with the research team’s industry partners, which is helping him see how private sector projects are managed and how their teams work. After his postdoc, he thinks he’ll likely be applying for faculty jobs in the United States. But he’s not opposed to a position in the private sector, and he thinks the practical experience he’s logging during his postdoc will make him a more competitive candidate.

Rongheng Li completed his PhD at ��-Dearborn in 2019 and now works as a postdoctoral researcher. Photo by Annie Barker

Gajendra Singh Chawda followed a different path to ��-Dearborn for his postdoc. Chawda finished his PhD in electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in early 2022 and took a postdoctoral research position there after graduation. But he really wanted to get experience at an American university, and when he saw a posting for a postdoctoral research position working with Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Wencong Su, he felt like it would be a great fit. Chawda’s work focuses on the complexities of integrating renewable energy into the electric grid and renewable energy access for economically disadvantaged communities — which happen to be two of Su’s research interests. Currently, Chawda is working on some foundational research on high-frequency AC microgrids — a technology that many researchers and industry experts see as vital for modernizing the electric grid so it can accommodate more renewable energy and battery storage. Chawda says one of the other big perks of the position is that he gets to work as a lecturer — the first time he’s had the opportunity to teach students outside of a lab setting.

Moreover, it’s also been an exciting time for his family. His wife and daughter accompanied him for this adventure in the United States, and Chawda says his daughter loves her school in Dearborn Heights. “She’s always so excited to come home and show me what she’s done at school,” he says. “The American education system is a lot different. In India, I would say it’s more focused on books and, here, students seem to do a lot of activities. For example, she came home the other day and was so proud to show me the house that she built.” Like Li, Chawda says he’s hoping to find a faculty position at an American university after his postdoc and thinks having that experience on his CV will boost his chances of success.

Aside from the professional benefits to postdoctoral researchers, Vassileva-Clarke says there are huge benefits for their faculty supervisors. “The impact is tremendous. Postdoctoral researchers are just so helpful to faculty members because they are already trained and highly skilled, so they can help a faculty member with so many things that are so time consuming, like proposal writing, hands-on research in the lab, or research training and mentoring of students,” Vassileva-Clarke says. “PhD students are super helpful too, but you still have to train them, advise them, and then some of them find out research is not their calling. So a postdoc really extends the bandwidth of the faculty member.”

Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry Christos Constantinides
Photo by Annie Barker

Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry Christos Constantinides can vouch for that. As an early-career faculty member working towards tenure, he was excited to recently land a large grant from the U.S. Department of Energy supporting research that could improve nuclear magnetic resonance-based technologies like MRI. But with a demanding course load teaching organic chemistry to undergraduates, he frankly needs help with the very labor-intensive, advanced chemistry that the DOE-funded project demands. A postdoc was really his only option, since some of the work is too advanced for the undergraduate students he’ll also be hiring for the project, and his department doesn’t have a PhD program he can use to recruit doctoral students.

When he posted the position, Constantinides was surprised to get 65 applicants. He finds that pretty encouraging given that ��-Dearborn just recently earned an R2 designation and he’s still in the process of making his name in the field. But as someone who did a three-year postdoc himself, which he says is a prerequisite to getting a tenure-track position in his discipline, Constantinides gets the logic. “You can go work for a big name at a big university, and if everything goes well, you’ll get your publications and, most importantly, get a letter of recommendation from your mentor. You’re basically going to get a job at that point. But if you don’t get the letter, it can be the kiss of death,” Constantinides says. “That big name — you’re going to see that person maybe one or two hours a week. And, frankly, they don’t need the publications. Me, though? I need the papers. So if you come work with me, you’re going to get more support, more mentorship and hopefully more publications. It’s kind of a gamble either way, but for some people, this postdoc opportunity is going to feel like a good bet.”

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Story by Lou Blouin

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Natural Sciences

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Office of Research

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Mon, 03/31/2025 - 16:31

Postdoctoral researchers on campus are another sign of ��-Dearborn’s growing research culture. But what exactly do postdocs do, and why can they be a game changer for university research?

Postdoctoral researcher Gajendra Singh Chawda is currently researching high-frequency AC microgrids with Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Wencong Su. Photo by Annie Barker

Regents roundup for March 2025

lblouin — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 13:29:57 +0000

Regents roundup for March 2025 lblouin Mon, 03/24/2025 - 09:29

Chancellor’s update

Chancellor Domenico Grasso provided the following university updates:

This month, the chancellor was invited to give the keynote address at the University of Florida’s Quest program gathering.
Extended an invitation to the Regents and executive officers to attend Soiree in the City on May 1 at Michigan Central
Shared ��-Dearborn’s medical school acceptance rate is 69%, above national averages which are in the 40% range; ��-Dearborn’s gaming program ranked in the top 50 nationwide by Princeton Review; College of Business’s undergraduate program ranked No. 3 in the state by Poets and Quants
Provided an update on spring commencement

Reappointments of regular instructional staff and selected academic and administrative staff

Jie Shen, interim chair, Department of Computer and Information Science, CECS, effective Jan. 1, 2025 through Aug. 31, 2025 (also professor of computer and information science, with tenure).

Approval of the following committee appointments

Citizens Advisory Committee

Susan Dabaja, reappointment, four-year term, April 1, 2025-March 31, 2029.
Russell Kavalhuna, reappointment, four-year term, April 1, 2025-March 31, 2029.
Timothy Meyer, retroactive reappointment, four-year term, March 1, 2025-Feb. 28, 2029.

The 2025-2026 academic calendar was approved. There was a change to the Fall semester. The previously submitted calendar had six examination days and three study days. The corrected calendar has five examination days and four study days.

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View the Board of Regents meeting agenda.

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Chancellor

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Mon, 03/24/2025 - 13:29

Get details from the March U-M Board of Regents meeting, including the chancellor’s campus update and faculty and committee appointments.

Renick University Center debuts first floor makeover

lblouin — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 11:24:39 +0000

Renick University Center debuts first floor makeover lblouin Mon, 03/17/2025 - 07:24

A big chunk of the Renick University Center’s first floor has been closed for renovation since April of last year. If you’ve been wondering what the remodeled space was going to look like, you can now come take it all in. The RUC fully reopened on Monday last week, showcasing a host of improvements, including a lot of U-M-themed branding, a fireplace, plenty of spaces to hang out and study, and new homes for several key campus offices, including Career Services and the Student Advising and Resource Team, or START. Director of Facilities Planning and Construction Emily Hamilton, who oversaw design of the project, says one of the goals was to make the east end of the building, which faces the campus’ large surface parking area, feel more like a front door to the university. “Now, you walk in and it just feels like a more fun place to go to school,” Hamilton says. “It’s more open. You immediately see lounge and hangout spaces. There’s a fireplace and a big ‘Hail to the Victors’ on the wall and some very recognizable colors. You know where you are when you walk in the door.”

Senior Architect and Project Manager Kal Haddad says the RUC renovation went a little "above and beyond" on materials, design and color compared to some other recent projects.

Indeed. The maize and blue and other U-M touches are the driving force behind the aesthetic overhaul. In addition, Hamilton says there were a lot of meaningful changes to the building’s floor plan so some core student services could be relocated to a more convenient location. A couple of the biggest changes: There’s a new shared suite for START, which is moving down from the RUC’s second floor, and Career Services, which was located in Fairlane Center North. In addition, the One-Stop office has a much more open floor plan. The renovated first floor is also gaining several smaller meeting rooms, as well as a large meeting room for hosting tour and orientation groups. To do more with the same amount of space, Hamilton says the team drew on newly adopted compact space guidelines for offices, made considerations for office sharing where it made sense, and stocked communal spaces with moveable furniture so they could easily transition from meeting rooms to lunch rooms. The design team even chose barn door-style office entry doors to eliminate the space that’s needed for conventional inswing doors.

During the design phase, Hamilton says some staff were initially a little anxious about the smaller offices. But now that they’ve seen them in person, people seem totally fine with the smaller footprints. “This is the first time we’ve designed a project with this post-COVID office philosophy in mind,” Hamilton says. “In fact, right now, we’re working on moving the College of Education, Health and Human Services into the Administration Building, and we gave them a tour of the RUC to give them a sense of what the space would feel like. They really liked it, and so I think having this project as an example is helping allay people’s fears about what shrinking your office size actually looks like.”

The new fireplace is the centerpiece of a cozy first floor lounge area.

The Career Services staff is particularly enthusiastic about its move to the heart of campus. Jennifer Macleod, the senior professional development program manager for Career Services, jokes that they’d grown used to correcting students, who assumed Career Services was already located in the RUC. Now that Career Services is actually here, she’s hoping for a lot more drop-in traffic from students. Moreover, the shared space with START will make collaborating even easier. “We’ve done a lot of programming with START over the years and there’s a natural back-and-forth between our two teams,” Macleod says. “A student might be working with us on career coaching, but there is a lot of planning of academics that goes into that, whether it’s changing a major or exploring different majors. So that’s when you need to help students connect with their START advisor, and now, we can basically just walk a student down the hall. Any time you can remove a barrier like that, they’re more likely to follow through and get the help they need.” Similarly, Macleod says it’ll be huge to be able to take students who might be struggling with, say, the stress of a job search, directly up to the staff at Counseling and Psychological Services, which is located on the RUC’s second floor.

Not surprisingly, students are already laying claim to the new hangout and study spaces. Grad students Devraj Amin and Theekshana Vishnu Kumar, who were studying in one of the new lounge areas on Wednesday last week, say they’ve already sought out their favorite spot a couple times. “The furniture is very comfortable and it’s very cozy and classy,” Kumar says. “Everyone enters from here, and when [students] see this place, I think they’ll get more interested. It looks very appealing and eye-catching. I think this will be one of the hotspots to sit and study or hang out. It might be one of the coziest places now.”

The RUC is now packed with different kinds of study spaces for students.

The renovation at the RUC is part of an ongoing multi-phase effort to transform the building, the neighboring Mardigian Library and the space between the two buildings into a central hub for campus. You can read more about this and other major design projects that are in the works in our most recent story on the comprehensive campus plan.

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Story by Lou Blouin, Cayley Catlett and Ben Vertin. Photos by Annie Barker

Off

Mon, 03/17/2025 - 11:18

A lot of maize and blue branding, a hangout area with a fireplace and new spaces for core student services are some of the highlights of the recent renovation at the RUC, which fully reopened last week.

With lots of new maize and blue design elements, the renovated first floor of the Renick University Center leaves no doubt that you're on a U-M campus.

��-Dearborn earns R2 research designation

lblouin — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 12:34:13 +0000

��-Dearborn earns R2 research designation lblouin Wed, 02/26/2025 - 07:34

By every big metric that Vice Provost for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies Armen Zakarian tracks, ��-Dearborn’s research enterprise is on a tear. The big top line stat: Since 2018, externally funded research expenditures have nearly tripled, increasing from $4.8 million to a projected $13.2 million for FY25. Earlier this month, that growth led to a reclassification of ��-Dearborn as an R2 institution, a designation from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the American Council on Education for universities that award at least 20 research doctorates and have $5 million average annual research spending. It’s the first time the university has received this designation. ��-Dearborn Chancellor Domenico Grasso says the honorific is, without a doubt, an important new feather in the cap for the university. But, for him, the real achievement is all the work that it’s a reflection of. “This recognizes something which we already accomplished — and that is great and I’m very proud of that — but we were going to do it anyway. And honestly, we’re not even satisfied with where we are. There remains enormous untapped potential, so this is really just the start for us,” Grasso says.

So how did we get here? Zakarian and Grasso point to a number of contributing factors. Flash back to 2018 and Zakarian says you’d see an institution where research was “recognized but not prioritized.” The tone changed when Grasso came in and made growing the university’s research and scholarly output one of his top priorities. “In my view, distinguished universities are defined by a faculty comprising scholar-teachers. To my mind, the definition of a professor is someone who is a scholar at the forefront of their field, sharing their passion, knowledge and discoveries with their students,” Grasso says. “Even in the elite small liberal arts schools in New England, where they are known for their focus on educating undergraduate students, the faculty are active scholars.” Zakarian says the administration endorsed that model and supported faculty with larger investments in research development and pre- and post-award support, so researchers could get assistance securing and administering grants.

Aside from the messaging and support from leadership, Zakarian thinks three other things helped set the stage for the explosive research growth the university has seen over the past few years. First, he says faculty consistently cite a shortage of time as their biggest impediment to building their research careers. So some departments decided to lighten the teaching load from three to two courses per semester. The second big factor: the sanctioning of the College of Engineering and Computer Science doctoral programs by U-M’s Rackham Graduate School in 2019. That affiliation meant the programs had to meet the same rigorous standards as doctoral programs on the Ann Arbor campus, which boosted ��-Dearborn’s prestige and ability to recruit top PhD students. This helped faculty recruit valuable talent to power their labs, which further eased their time/labor burden. Finally, Zakarian says when filling faculty vacancies, colleges prioritized hiring ambitious, early-career, research-focused scholars who had the potential to become leaders in their fields.

Then, of course, there’s something to be said for momentum. As some of the above changes started to take root, a few faculty started landing bigger grants, and a larger share of the awards were coming from federal funders, like the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy and Department of Defense. “We used to get very few million dollar grants. But it just took a few teams to do that and then we started getting more,” Zakarian says. “You basically reach a point where I think people are looking at what each other are doing, and the mood shifts. Now, we are approaching $85 million in submitted proposals, which I think is just incredible. And the number of proposals hasn’t gone up by a whole lot. That means faculty are more confident going for bigger and bigger grants. Frankly, that’s what it’s going to take. It would be difficult for us to reach the next level, $200,000 at a time.”

Zakarian says the university has also reached a point where the research enterprise has a fairly broad base. “When I think about how sustainable this is, I’m basically looking at whether this is just a handful of people bringing in the big dollar amounts. But it’s much broader than that,” he says. Moreover, while engineering disciplines are responsible for the largest share of the research growth, Zakarian says other disciplines, particularly in the natural sciences, are starting to develop the same momentum. Last year, with engineering in a good spot, the Office of Research made it a priority to assist faculty in the natural sciences. That resulted in several big research grants in biology and chemistry from national funders, including the National Institutes of Health and Department of Energy. Looking ahead, Zakarian and Grasso say the most untapped potential lies in those disciplines, along with computer science, artificial intelligence, and health and human services — the latter of which could also be targeting NIH grants, one of the national funders with the biggest budget.

Grasso notes, however, that realizing that potential now faces some new political hurdles. The Trump administration has pursued several measures that directly disrupt university research, including attempting to severely cut the amount of indirect costs covered by NIH grants, layoffs at the National Science Foundation and pauses by grant review committees. “This is a significant threat,” Grasso says. “I understand the desire to be cost conscious and efficient. But research has been the fuel in the engine that has powered this country, whether you’re talking about revolutionary medications, transistors, AI or practically everything that has changed the world — it all has roots in research — and many of those roots found a home in American soil. To hamper this is incredibly reckless and foolhardy.”

Even within the climate, Zakarian says the R2 designation and what it represents should help keep the momentum going. “Obviously, a lot of this goes back to our ability to recruit and retain top faculty, and I think this designation really does help us communicate that if you are really ambitious and you want to build a strong research program, you can do it here. It says, ‘We’re open for business. We have the resources and the vision. Others have done it, you can do it too.’”

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Story by Lou Blouin

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

College of Business

College of Education, Health, and Human Services

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Off

Wed, 02/26/2025 - 12:33

The recognition follows six years of rapid growth in which externally funded research spending at ��-Dearborn has nearly tripled. So how did we get here? And what’s next?

Associate Professor Dr. Zhi Zhang (not pictured) and Assistant Professor Jie Fan (pictured, middle) recently landed a $465,000 grant from the NIH. Large federal grants helped power ��-Dearborn to an R2 designation in 2025. Photo by Julianne Lindsay

University-wide

What does an Institutional Review Board do?

Big changes, familiar faces

Onsite composting is coming to ������-Dearborn

The Administration Building and Social Sciences Building are getting makeovers

Spring 2025 Commencement: A guide to the big day

Speakers

Commencement stats

Tickets

Volunteering

How to watch

How postdocs help faculty take research to another level

Regents roundup for March 2025

Chancellor’s update

Reappointments of regular instructional staff and selected academic and administrative staff

Approval of the following committee appointments

Renick University Center debuts first floor makeover

������-Dearborn earns R2 research designation

Onsite composting is coming to ��-Dearborn

��-Dearborn earns R2 research designation