Four Loyola students named University Innovation Fellows by Stanford University
Four Loyola students have been selected University Innovation Fellows (UIF) by Stanford University.
The recipients are Cameron Galley, ’22, a psychology major from Baltimore, Md.; Benjamin Hunt, ’22, an Annapolis, Md., native who is majoring in finance; Meghan McNulty, ’22, a chemistry major from Tucson, Ariz.; and Siena Pizzano, ’22, a data science major with a minor in innovation and entrepreneurship from West Orange, N.J.
The four Loyola students are among 360 students from 90 higher education institutions throughout the world who have been named University Innovation Fellows. As fellows, selected students are challenged with bringing innovative ideas to campus to help foster entrepreneurial opportunities, creativity, and design thinking. They will also attend workshops, conferences, work alongside faculty and administrators to develop new course material and lend a student voice to conversations about higher education.
In spring 2020, the fellows will have the chance to attend a Silicon Valley Meetup in California where they will meet with leaders in education and industry to learn strategies to help their projects and ideas thrive at their universities.
“The University Innovation Fellows represent the early adopters, or what can be called the ‘bleeding edge’ of student innovators on campus,” said Wendy Bolger, director of the Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. “They are among the select cohorts of changemakers who help us gain momentum and broaden the appeal of innovation and entrepreneurship across campus. The first Loyola UIFs just graduated, moving on to graduate programs and tech careers, and they found that the teambuilding, facilitation, and problem-solving skills they developed through the program were in high demand.”
The international UIF program offers training and development to student leaders interested in serving as change agents and bringing innovation to their colleges and universities. This is the fourth cohort of fellows from Loyola. Past cohorts from the University have led efforts through the Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship such as establishing makerspaces in the Loyola/Notre Dame Library and residence halls and planning life-hack and TEDx events. This year the cohort will use design thinking to come up with a solution to end vaping both locally and nationally.
“It’s humbling to be a part of such an important organization where they strive to teach us how to innovate the world around us,” said McNulty. “I am grateful for this opportunity not only to learn from the training and the others in my cohort but to grow as a person.”
UIF, which is a program of Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, was created by the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter) and funded by a five-year National Science Foundation grant. Loyola joined the program in 2017. Suzanne Keilson, Ph.D., associate professor of engineering, Bahram Roughani, Ph.D., associate dean of the natural and applied sciences, and Bolger serve as mentors to the fellows.