SOUTHFIELD, Mich. – Three students from Lawrence Technological University have been named University Innovation Fellows.
LTU’s newest Fellows are Leah Hall, a sophomore from Kingsley; Aneeka Patel, a junior from Troy; and Joe Pishek, a sophomore from Plymouth. Hall is majoring in biomedical engineering, while Patel and Pishek are majoring in industrial engineering.
The University Innovation Fellows program trains students to improve education in entrepreneurship, design thinking and creativity at their schools. Fellows design innovation spaces, start entrepreneurship organizations, host experiential learning events and work with faculty to develop new courses.
The program is run by Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. With the addition of 224 students from 58 higher education institutions announced this week, the program has trained 1,000 students at 185 schools since its inception.
Fellows are sponsored by faculty and administrators as individuals or teams, and selected through an application process twice annually. Following acceptance, students go through six weeks of online training and travel to an annual University Innovation Fellows Silicon Valley Meetup. Throughout the year, they take part in events and conferences and have opportunities to learn from one another, Stanford mentors, and leaders in academia and industry.
LTU’s latest class of Innovation Fellows is proposing several steps to boost interdisciplinary project-based and leadership learning at the university. Included are getting students from fields other than engineering involved in an engineering design course that aims to improve employment prospects for the disabled; broadening LTU’s existing leadership curriculum to include larger and more interdisciplinary community service projects; and expanding LTU’s existing mentorship program for first-year students.
To watch a video of the latest LTU University Innovation Fellows, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl4gjCbdd8s&feature=youtu.be/.
The latest cohort of LTU Innovation Fellows joins earlier Fellows Leah Batty of Macomb Township, Justin Becker of Romeo, Steven Graczyk of Troy, Ashley Jordan of Macomb Township, Sarah Makki of Dearborn Heights, and Nada Saghir of Dearborn.
Lawrence Technological University, www.ltu.edu, is a private university founded in 1932 that offers more than 100 programs through the doctoral level in its Colleges of Architecture and Design, Arts and Sciences, Engineering, and Management. PayScale lists Lawrence Tech among the nation’s top 100 universities for the salaries of its graduates, and U.S. News and World Report lists it in the top tier of best Midwestern universities. Students benefit from small class sizes and a real-world, hands-on, “theory and practice” education with an emphasis on leadership. Activities on Lawrence Tech’s 107-acre campus include more than 60 student organizations and NAIA varsity sports.
In the photo above are, from left to right, Dr. Cristi Bell-Huff, director of the Lawrence Technological University Studio for Entrepreneurial Engineering Design (SEED); University Innovation Fellows Aneeka Patel, Leah Hall, and Joe Pishek; and Heidi Morano, SEED project engineer.