Category: Featured Stories

Wichita State University has selected the top 14 finalists in the annual Distinguished Scholarship Invitational:

• Kyra Bergman, Centralia High School (Centralia, KS)
• Maisy Blanton, Andover High School
• Evander Davis, Washburn Rural High School
• Grace Fisher, Liberty High School (Missouri)
• Payton Hamilton, McPherson High School
• Maley Hansen, Wichita North High School
• Lesly Hernandez, Maize High School
• Tamara Ibrahim, Wichita East High School
• Jayden Island, Derby High School
• Katelyn Janzen, Oklahoma Bible Academy (Oklahoma)
• Carson McCachern, Deer Creek High School (Oklahoma)
• Laura Pham, Wichita East High School
• Ronish Rasaily, Wichita East High School
• Anna Richardson, Kapaun Mt. Carmel Catholic High School

Navigating an unfamiliar building can be discouraging and difficult to persons with disabilities. A team of Wichita State University researchers is in the early stages of developing digital maps to help accessibility indoors, where GPS or satellite systems often don’t work.

In December, the National Science Foundation Convergence Accelerator Track awarded a Wichita State-led team a $750,000 grant to gather information and create digital maps of indoor spaces that could be used by persons with disabilities.

“A person using a wheelchair often doesn’t know the accessible route,” said Vinod Namboodiri, professor and associate director for research engagement in the College of Engineering. “It leads to lesser participation by people with disabilities in employment or maybe other aspects of life. What we’re trying to do is improve quality of life, improve employment opportunities out of this, hopefully which leads to broader societal gains.”

The creation of maps (MABLE – Mapping for Accessibility in Built Environments) through crowdsourcing, experiences, observations and robots will help persons with disabilities assess, plan and navigate indoor environments with audio and visual information. Envisioned users include those with visual or mobility impairments (blind, low vision, wheelchair users, cane users, etc.).

The project, Namboodiri said, can appeal to a wider population by helping anyone entering an unfamiliar building, such as freshmen on the first day of class.

“Maps allow you to study a space, weighing your comfort as in, ‘Do I even want to go to that building?” Namboodiri said. “You want to live independently and learn things.”

The NSF selected 16 multidisciplinary teams with projects that enhance opportunities for persons with disabilities. Namboodiri is proud that the Wichita State-led project is in a group with projects from schools such as Stanford, Cornell, Northwestern and Harvard.

Wichita State’s previous work in this area strengthened its credentials for the grants.

“It’s a very prestigious award and very selective,” Namboodiri said. “We got it because of our history. They felt we could make contributions. We made a good case from the middle of the country that we can do stuff, too.”

In 2020, the NSF awarded more than $1.1 million to Namboodiri and a team to create a community-wide wayfinding system for people with disabilities. That project focused on filling in the gaps of traditional GPS systems to help with emergency evacuation, remote assistance, and travel within transit system by using an app. 

In 2021, NSF invited Wichita State to hold a workshop that highlighted the school’s emphasis on accessibility and inclusion.

“We are very much invested as a university in promoting solutions for people with disabilities,” Namboodiri said. “That workshop led to the National Science Foundation creating a funding opportunity for everyone to apply around the country. That’s where this project came from.”

The first phase of the NSF grants is designed to develop new technologies and tools to enhance the quality of life and employment access and opportunities for persons with disabilities. In the second phase, teams submit a formal proposal and compete for up to $5 million of additional support over 24 months to develop their solutions and sustainability development plans.

“It’s essentially a competition among these 16 teams,” Namboodiri said. “Academics typically work at a very slow, methodical fashion that takes many years. They are essentially turning us into start-ups in some sense. They are training us to pitch a product, create the right marketing message, so that we can reach, not just end users, but people who could fund projects.”

The research team includes Wichita State Associate Professor Nils Hakansson (College of Engineering), Georgia Tech Associate Professor Patricio Vela (School of Electrical and Computer Engineering), Kansas State Associate Professor Siny Joseph (Department of Agricultural Economics) and Florida Institute of Technology Professor Ted Conway (Department of Biomedical Engineering). Wichita State students will help with the research.

Join President Rick Muma and his team as they prepare future Shockers for a lifetime of success. The President’s Team is raising money for the United Way’s Coaching for Literacy initiative, which puts books and supplies into the hands of USD 259 students.

Reading helps children build cognitive skills, gain a deeper understanding of the world, improve their concentration, and fuel their imagination. As an educational driver for the state of Kansas, Wichita State is committed to helping students of all ages achieve success and become the leaders of tomorrow.

Tune in to KMUW 89.1 from 7 to 8 a.m. Friday, Dec. 16, to hear President Rick Muma and First Gentleman Rick Case as they take part in the radio station’s year-end fundraiser.

Listeners who donate $75 or more will receive a fun pair of KMUW socks as a thank-you gift; and for every donation, McClelland Sound will donate a pair of warm socks to neighbors in need.

Catch the action on 89.1 FM or online at www.kmuw.org.

Wichitans voted, and Wichita State won several top honors for The Wichita Eagle’s Best of Wichita awards.

• Best college or university
• Best audiology and hearing center for the WSU Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic.
• Best childcare for the WSU Child Development Center

To read the full list of results, visit www.BestofWichitaKS.com.

Wichita State University’s efforts to encourage student voter turnout and engagement continue to grow.

In November, WSU earned “Most Engaged Campus for College Student Voting” recognition from ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge. It is one of 394 colleges and universities recognized for making intentional, nonpartisan efforts to increase student voter participation.

“This is in line with work we’ve been doing for a while,” said Gabriel Fonseca, director of Student Engagement, Advocacy & Leadership. “It feels like we’re doing the right work and good work and being recognized among other institutions.”

People in Mulvane who knew Delane Vaughn as a youngster did not expect her to become a doctor. She understands their view of her future.

“I was pretty wild and undirected,” she said.

Vaughn loved science and her biology teacher at Mulvane High School, Joe Johnson, started her on a path to Wichita State University as the first person in her family to attend college. She worked, raised a family and attended WSU and the University of Kansas School of Medicine.

In June, she started as clinic physician at Wichita State’s Student Health Services.

Wayne and Kay Woolsey Hall, the new home of W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University, has a dynamic new art installation, which is sure to draw the eyes of passersby.

Stratosphere (2022) — created by Hybycozo, an artist duo that includes Serge Beaulieu and Yelena Filipchuk — will welcome drivers and visitors to Woolsey Hall. As part of a collaboration between the Ulrich Museum of Art, the Barton School of Business, WSU Foundation, and WSU Facilities Planning, this piece will be the 86th piece in the Ulrich Museum’s Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection.

‘Stratosphere’ is a stainless-steel structure with gold powder-coating that measures 12 feet in diameter. Hybycozo stands for “Hyperspace Bypass Construction Zone.” The name is an allusion to the Douglas Adams science fiction book, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and captures the artists’ shared interests in the many dimensions of geometry, natural patterns found at scales ranging from the microscopic to the cosmic, and advanced manufacturing and fabrication.

Two uniquely interactive sculptures have been installed next to Woolsey Hall as part of the Ulrich Museum of Art’s world-class Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection.

The two sculptures — “Ernest and Ruth” (2015) — double as a bench and have the unmistakable shape of a speech bubble. Two of these sculptures are located slightly off the main traffic area leading up to Woolsey Hall to encourage interaction. “Ernest and Ruth” was created by the artist Hank Willis Thomas. Many of Thomas’ playfully conceptual works co-opt ubiquitous pop culture symbols to inspire deeper reflection on society’s norms and beliefs.

Thomas’ art is the first work by an African American artist in the Ulrich Museum’s Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection. It is not, however, his first work represented in the Ulrich collection. Thomas’ 2009 series of 20 paintings titled “I Am a Man” is a key work that the museum recently lent to the artist’s large-scale traveling mid-career retrospective.

Neutrinos are on the short list of the biggest mysteries in fundamental physics, and Wichita State University researchers are taking a lead role in investigating them.

“The unsolved question right now is ‘Why do they have mass? How do they have mass?’” said Jonathan Folkerts, Wichita State graduate student. “When neutrinos were first thought of, we figured they had to be massless, but they do some things that mean they have to have mass.”

In late September, Folkerts, Jarred Novak and Trent English presented papers on the design of their neutrino detector prototype at the International Astronautical Congress in Paris, representing the NASA-funded Solar Neutrino Orbiting Laboratory Detector Development Project.