In This Issue

Meet CSU's Faculty

Grace Chikoto-Schultz, Urban Studies

Dr. Grace Chikoto-Schultz is an associate professor of nonprofit management & leadership in the Department of Urban Studies in the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs. She earned her PhD in Public Policy from the Georgia State University – Georgia Institute of Technology’s joint doctoral program.

Dr. Chikoto-Schultz has experience working in an international non-governmental office (NGO) research environment, and prior to joining Cleveland State University, she taught at Portland State University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Within the nonprofit research field, Dr. Chikoto-Schultz is interested in the nuances of nonprofit funding and how that influences their financial health, the degree to which these organizations prepare for and respond to disasters/crises, and how international NGOs/civil society organizations relate and engage with the state. She also enjoys engaging with nonprofit organizations around these issues. Outside of academia, Dr. Chikoto-Schultz enjoys traveling, visiting museums, antiquing, and watching and playing tennis with her family.

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Featured Research Event

2021 Virtual Cybersecurity & Privacy Protection Conference

CSU's Center for Cybersecurity & Privacy Protection is pleased to announce that Tony Sager, Chief Evangelist at the Center for Internet Security, and Jon Husted, Ohio Lieutenant Governor and Innovate Ohio Director, will speak at the online 2021 Virtual Cybersecurity & Privacy Protection Conference.

Lt. Governor Husted will discuss data security and privacy legal and regulatory developments in Ohio. Tony Sager's talk, Cybersecurity Maturity from Oxymoron to Inevitable, will discuss some history of the key issues and trends in cybersecurity maturity. CSU faculty, staff and students are invited to attend the event on May 20-21 for free using the code CMLAW.

Research Funding News

Revised NIH Forms for Foreign and Domestic Conflict of Interest

NIH has updated its application forms and instructions to support the need for applicants and recipients to provide full transparency and disclosure of all research activities, foreign and domestic.

A new notice published by NIH highlights changes to biosketches and other support. Of note, “Other Support” includes all resources made available to a researcher in support of and/or related to all of their research endeavors, regardless of whether or not they have monetary value and regardless of whether they are based at the institution the researcher identifies for the current grant.

These changes take effect starting May 25. To assist faculty with understanding undue foreign influence in academic research, SPRS will be adding a brief foreign influence training course that researchers can view online through the CITI training portal.

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Inspired Creativity

Student Art Show and Merit Scholar Exhibition

Best in drawing winner Collage I by Liv Hearn

The 49th Student Show and CSU Merit Scholar Exhibition are currently appearing at the CSU Galleries. The Student Show is a juried exhibition of works in all media by CSU students that is organized by the Student Organization for Fine Arts (SOFA).

The Merit Scholar Exhibition showcases the works of CSU students majoring in Art who received merit scholarship support. Scholarship awards are based on the quality of artwork submitted for review. The exhibition runs from May 4 through June 5. The Student Show is housed in the South and Center Galleries, while the Merit Scholar Exhibition can be viewed in the North Gallery. The Galleries at CSU are located at 1307 Euclid Avenue in the historic Cowell and Hubbard building at the corner of East 13th Street.

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News from the Technology Transfer Office

New Patent Disclosure

The CSU Patent Review Committee approved the invention disclosure of Dr. Lili Dong, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), titled Capacitive Proximity Sensor for Mask and Mask Fit Detection System Associated Therewith. The provisional patent application was filed April 23, 2021. The invention provides a novel capacitive sensor system for accurately placing a non-invasive ventilator mask on a patient. The sensor system will also monitor for accurate air flow to reach the patient. The capacitive sensor system may also be applied to additional masks such as bi-level positive airway pressure (BiPAP) masks, constant positive airway pressure (CPAP) masks, and chemical and biological masks.

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

Team ARC Technologies

This year’s I-Corps@Ohio Program began May 7, and CSU team ARC Technologies was selected to participate in the 2021 Cohort. The team is led by Antonie van den Bogert, the Parker Hannifin Endowed Chair and a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and supported by three recent CSU graduate students.

The ARC Technologies team is applying the customer discovery process to determine the commercial viability of a novel wearable sleeve that allows an accurate measurement of a user’s throwing mechanics to assist with throwing consistency and injury prevention. ARC's technology will replace the current stationary motion capture systems that rely on expensive camera assemblies and will provide greater accuracy of the thrower’s mechanics.

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Scholarship of Note

Research and Scholarship News from Across Campus

Congratulations to Dr. Jerzy Sawicki, the Bently and Muszynska Endowed Chair and Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and recent CSU graduate Dr. Michael Hurrell for receiving the Best Paper Award at Turbo Expo 2020. The conference, originally scheduled to take place in London, UK, was held in a virtual format due to COVID-19. Turbo Expo is a large conference with more than 1,200 papers presented in the area of gas turbines and turbomachinery.

The paper presents a new approach for estimating drag and pumping losses in high-speed rotorcraft transmissions.  Such load-independent losses have posed, for example, significant development hurdles for aircrafts such as the CH-47 Chinook or the V-22 Osprey (pictured at left). The losses of a shrouded spur gear pair have been determined through testing using an experimental facility at the NASA Glenn Research Center.

Andrew Thomas, Executive-in-Residence with the Energy Policy Center in the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, has been awarded $70,000 by BRITE Energy Innovators for a project titled “Appalachian Energy Storage Roadmap.”

Mr. Thomas’s team will develop a roadmap that develops an analysis and framework for leveraging the burgeoning energy storage cluster in the tri-state area of Appalachian Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia that encompasses 139 counties. BRITE will use the roadmap to act as a navigator and enabler for commercialization, entrepreneurship, and job creation in coal-impacted communities.

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Featured Research Resources

PI Summary Reports: Tracking Your Sponsored Award

Sponsored Programs and Research Services (SPRS) provides full pre- and post-award services to grant-seeking faculty and provides financial management for grant awards for research, education, and community service at CSU.

Among the tools that SPRS has developed to assist researchers who hold active grants is the PI Summary Report. On about the 15th of each month, the report is sent directly to each PI, providing a snapshot to quickly review balances and time remaining on sponsored awards. The report reflects expenditures charged to the account and serves as a tool to assist faculty in managing sponsored awards.

Chris Pokorny Presents at Alliance Virtual 2021

Chris Pokorny, Manager of IT Services for the Office of Research, presented a virtual session titled "BI Publisher Reports: Unlocking the Tricks & Treasures" to 477 attendees and was selected as an Alliance Champion Presenter at the Alliance Virtual 2021 conference hosted by the Higher Education User Group (HEUG) in March. The HEUG is a non-profit, international organization consisting of Higher Education institutions that use application software from the Oracle Corporation, including PeopleSoft.

One example of a report generated using BI Publisher is the PI Summary Report (see story at left), and Chris manages a broad range of reporting and research support tools at CSU.

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