In This Issue

Meet CSU's New Faculty

Craig Foltin, Accounting

Dr. Craig Foltin joined Cleveland State as an assistant professor in the Department of Accounting in fall 2016. A lifelong Northeast Ohio resident, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the Ohio State University before earning his MBA and Doctor of Business Administration from CSU. He has published 30 papers in some of America’s top accounting journals, including Research in Accounting Regulation, Accounting Historians Journal, CPA Journal and Strategic Financial Management. He also serves on the Editorial Board for CPA Journal.

In 2019, Dr. Foltin was named the outstanding accounting faculty of the year by Beta Alpha Psi. In 2018, he received The CPA Journal’s Max Block Award for the outstanding article in the feature paper category. Prior to arriving at CSU, Dr. Foltin was Provost and Executive Vice President at Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C), having also served as Tri-C’s Chief Academic Officer as well as its Executive Vice President of Administration and Finance and Treasurer. He was named Crain’s Cleveland Business CFO of the Year in 2009. Dr. Foltin also served as the Mayor of Lorain, Ohio, from 2000-2007.

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Featured Research Video

Water Research at CSU

Cleveland State is an urban campus in a city on the shores of a Great Lake, and water research is an area of great importance to the University. 2019 also marks the 50th anniversary of the 1969 fire on the Cuyahoga River, one of many events that led to the 1972 Clean Water Act.

In this month’s Featured Research video, Dr. Julie Wolin, an associate professor in the Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences (BGES), brings viewers to a field work site and discusses her research studies related to the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie.

Click here to watch.

Industry Partnerships

"Industry Express" Licensing

Ohio’s Governor Mike DeWine and Lt. Governor Jon Husted are prioritizing innovation and technology development by Ohio’s public universities to support industry and economic growth.

Cleveland State’s Office of Research and its Technology Transfer Office, in consultation with the Board of Directors of the CSURC and representatives of CSU’s entrepreneurial faculty members, has drafted a framework for clear, simple licensing pathways called “Industry Express” that will provide industry collaborators with a clear, simple, and cost-effective approach to licensing or owning any IP resulting from the sponsored research. The three new pathways are intended to further streamline our commercialization process and attract additional business investment in our faculty-led research. Faculty members are invited to review the draft “Industry Express” framework here, and provide feedback via this survey form.

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CSU Scholar News

Shereen Naser, Psychology

Dr. Shereen Naser is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology. Before coming to Cleveland State, Dr. Naser was a practicing school psychologist in New Orleans. She received her undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Texas, Austin and her Ph.D. from Tulane University.

Dr. Naser’s research focuses on building school capacity to facilitate positive social, emotional, and behavioral development for diverse youth. She works with schools across Greater Cleveland to develop more effective behavioral data collection systems that reduce the impact of racial bias on how schools make decisions regarding student behavior. Dr. Naser and her research partner at Miami University recently received a grant from the William T. Grant Foundation to pilot their Integrated Data-Based Behavioral Referral model to interrupt the role of school-based referrals in the school-to-prison pipeline, and increase student access to needed support. Dr. Naser is also a member of CSU’s THRiVE collaborative. Their current projects include understanding how gender minority youth gain access to sexual health information and how school-based sex education facilitates access to affirming sexual health information for gender minority youth.

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Inspired Creativity

The American Dance Festival at CSU

The Cleveland State University Department of Theatre and Dance is collaborating with DANCECleveland, the American Dance Festival (ADF), and Playhouse Square to host a four day summer dance workshop on campus as part of the third annual ADF in CLE Summer Dance Festival. Classes will take place on the Cleveland State University Arts Campus, as well as other locations within the Playhouse Square Theatre District. Classes will be held July 23-26. Registration information can be found here.

The ADF in CLE Community Dance Day will take place on July 27 from 10 am to 4 pm on East 14th Street, and offers a variety of free activities throughout the day.

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News from the Technology Transfer Office

Invention Disclosure Pipeline

U.S. utility patent application no. 16/502423 was filed on July 3, 2019 for Dr. Antonie van den Bogert and graduate student Christopher Schroeck’s invention, titled Rotation Monitoring System and Method. Dr. van den Bogert is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

The technology development was sponsored in part by the Parker Hannifin Corporation. The invention provides an array of non-rigid, elastic strain sensors designed to monitor the relative motion of joints. The team is actively pursuing commercialization of the technology, including completion of the University of Akron’s I-Corps Site program and admission into the 2019 Flashstarts Accelerator.

Contact Jack Kraszewski for assistance with a disclosure to begin the process of protecting your invention or intellectual property.

TeCK Fund Accepting Letters of Intent from Faculty Entrepreneurs

The TeCK Fund, a joint technology commercialization and startup fund co-managed by Cleveland State University and Kent State University, is now accepting letters of intent for commercialization support. Applicants selected to submit a full proposal will be required to make a presentation to the selection committee. Applications are due May 1, 2020.

The TeCK Fund provides faculty pursuing applied research projects with funding to assist with commercialization activities, including prototype creation, third-party validation, and market research, which are required to successfully spin off technologies.

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Research Engagement

Innovation Portal Launch: Helping CSU to be "Open for Business"

The Office of Research and the Technology Transfer Office have launched a new front door for innovation with industry and citizens as part of a strategic effort to build deeper ties between the University and the community. The new Innovation Portal offers a keyword search function that lets users access CSU’s catalog of research results and publications, explore its faculty expertise database, and obtain information for partnering with faculty, staff and students at any stage of product development.

The portal ties together a broad range of resources and facilities at CSU that support new idea generation (the Weston Ideation Lab), prototype creation (the Dan T. Moore Makerspace), technology spin-out and early commercialization (the Technology Transfer Office), and small business growth (the Small Business Development Center). We invite faculty and staff to explore the Innovation Portal, and to let us know what CSU innovation resources they would like to have connected to the portal.

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Research Initiatives

IOTC@CSU – Meet the Faculty Ambassadors

The Internet of Things Collaborative (IoTC) is a partnership between Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland State University to bring together industrial, governmental, educational, neighborhood and non-profit entities in the region to harness IoT’s vast potential. Cleveland State’s IoT research, education, and engagement activities, under the working name of IOTC@CSU, are led by Executive Director Shilpa Kedar. IOTC@CSU has added faculty ambassadors to the team to help connect interested faculty and develop a stronger University-wide research base related to the IoT.

The faculty ambassadors, listed below, will be reaching out to faculty throughout the academic year, and you are invited to contact them to discuss IOTC@CSU activities and your own research interests.

	Jacqueline Jenkins is an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)		Brian Ray is a professor in the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law
	Obed Pasha is an assistant professor in the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs		Patty Stoddard Dare is a professor in the School of Social Work

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Research Resources
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) The Office of Research, in collaboration with the College of Graduate Studies, is pleased to announce an NSF GRFP Workshop for students who are interested in submitting a proposal. This prestigious program provides students with a three-year annual stipend of $34,000 and a $12,000 tuition allowance. The program is open to science, engineering, and education majors. The program is restricted to US citizens and permanent residents. Graduate student applicants must be in the first or second year of their graduate program as of fall 2019. Undergraduate students are eligible if they intend to enroll in their graduate program by fall 2020. Students who complete the CSU workshop will be provided with a $500 allowance for conference travel. Please click here to apply for the workshop.	SBIR-STTR Guidance for Faculty To promote innovation and research, CSU supports collaborations with small business concerns (SBCs), particularly through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. The University is not permitted to apply for SBIR or STTR grants. The University does, however, encourage faculty collaborations with SBCs and thus receives SBIR and STTR funds through subawards. Also, startup companies formed by University faculty can seek SBIR and STTR funding, either with or without University involvement. The Office of Research has developed this guide to assist faculty in their pursuit of SBIR and STTR grant support.
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Undergraduate Research News Samantha Tietjen, Physics Samantha Tietjen, a member of the Mandel Honors College majoring in Physics, has been awarded a prestigious SPS Leadership Scholarship from the national Society of Physics Students (SPS) office of the American Institute of Physics. In addition to her academic pursuits, Samantha has performed undergraduate research with support from the Undergraduate Summer Research Award (USRA) program in 2017 and in 2018, and has presented her research nationally and earned multiple presentation awards from the American Physical Society (APS) and the Ohio Academy of Sciences (OAS). This summer, she is a member of the 2019 student cohort of the NSF supported Soft Matter Physics Research Experiences for Undergraduates (Soft Matter REU) program at CSU, where she is working with Drs. Petru Fodor and Kiril Streletzky. Samantha was elected president of the CSU SPS chapter in fall 2018 and has been the key organizer of most SPS activities at CSU during the past year. [Return to Top]