Maya Blumovitz, Graduate Fellow

Graduate Fellowship Recipient, 2023

Maya Blumovitz, currently living in the Chicago area, pursuing a master’s degree in computer science, with a focus on medical technology. She is on the Dean's List with High Honors. Maya came to Northwestern following a unique path. In her personal statement she shared the many moves her family made living in three countries and two states before she even started high school. While in Israel she served in the Military Intelligence Corps as a manager of Satellite Based Foreign Relations. In the words of one of her Northwestern instructors, Sara Owsley Sood, "Maya is one of those students who make teaching an absolute joy, given the excitement and curiosity she exhibits toward learning, her incredible initiative, and her capacity to apply what she learns to the ‘real world’. I have no doubt that she will take advantage of every opportunity and apply her knowledge to address complex challenges." 2 Professor Sarah Van Wart adds, "Maya is part of the Northwestern Computer Science Ethics Fellow Program, an initiative that came out of another course I taught called Computing Ethics and Society, which was supported by an Alumnae Curriculum Innovation Grant."

Lyra Johnson, Graduate Fellow

Graduate Fellowship Recipient, 2023

Lyra Johnson, from Brookline, Mass., will be pursuing a master’s degree in public health, with a special interest in global health, maternal and child health, and reproductive health. She was on the Dean's List all quarters from 2018-2023. Lyra had several internships in her undergraduate years including at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Only 28 students out of hundreds of applicants nationwide were accepted. Professor Sera Young notes, "Lyra ranks among the very best undergraduate students with whom I have had the pleasure of working with in my career as a professor. I invited Lyra to serve as a Teaching Assistant for my class, Biocultural Perspectives in Water Insecurity. This TA position is particularly challenging because the class is taught in partnership with the Northwestern Prison Education Program (NPEP), which means designing a curriculum that is appropriate for both Northwestern undergrads and those inside Statesville Correctional Facility. Lyra was clearly up to the task!"

Yaritza Chavez, Graduate Fellow

Graduate Fellowship Recipient, 2023

Yaritza Chavez, from Springdale, AR, is pursuing her master’s degree in engineering design and innovation. Her goal is to pursue design research to eventually work for non-profit organizations in the social impact sector. Her project experiences are strong and varied, including work with Procter and Gamble, Shedd Aquarium, Google, the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, and other entities. In the words of one of Yaritza’s recommenders, Amy O'Keefe, director of Northwestern’s Engineering Design Innovation (EDI)program, "In addition to her academic acuity and technical expertise, Yaritza is among the most thoughtful and empathetic students I have had the pleasure of working with in my ten years at Northwestern. She is a first-generation college student with a strong commitment to family, friends, the Northwestern community, her cultural heritage, and social justice. Her emotional intelligence is truly exceptional. I am constantly impressed by the ways in which she approaches design challenges through the lens of her own lived experience."

9/2023

Jeremy Keys, Curriculum Innovation Award Recipient

Curriculum Innovation Award Recipient, 2023

Re-inventing Mechanical Engineering 240: Increasing engineers’ inductive learning through product archaeology

Jeremy Keys is an assistant professor of instruction in the McCormick School of Engineering’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Administered by the Office of the Provost, the award recognizes and supports faculty who have innovative ideas for new courses, methods of instruction and components of existing classes. 

Keys plans to use the award to revamp an existing class, “Mechanical Engineering 240,” by introducing “product archaeology” labs in which students will disassemble consumer products to learn about the embedded functions of their key mechanical components — a bit like a dissection in biology, but for household products.

Doing so will improve students’ appreciation for common mechanical assemblies as they interpret how engineers achieve desired mechanical functions. During the course, students also will redesign a load-bearing component of an existing consumer product and use advanced 3-D printing methods to create and share their prototypes.

Keys joined Northwestern in the Fall of 2022 as a teaching-line faculty member, having just completed his Ph.D. at Cornell University, where he studied the biophysical mechanisms that control cancer cell migration using microfluidic devices. In addition to “MechEng240,” he teaches the senior capstone course for mechanical engineers as well as “Engineering Analysis 3,” a system dynamics course for second-year engineering students.

The award comes with $12,500 in funding to be split between innovation development ($7,000), stipend ($5,000) and the faculty member’s home department ($500). The two honorees also will be recognized during a reception in the spring.

Northwestern Now, January 25, 2023

Click here for the program from The Alumnae of Northwestern University's 2023 Annual Meeting

Denise Bouras, Curriculum Innovation Award Recipient

Curriculum Innovation Award Recipient, 2023

Centering the community in advanced Spanish language curriculum - 

Denise Bouras is an associate professor of instruction in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Spanish and Portuguese. 

Bouras will use the award to connect Northwestern undergraduates in “Spanish 204: Advanced Spanish II - Artivism in Times of Political Change” with public school students in the Evanston/Skokie District 65’s “Two-Way Immersion” program, which seeks to promote fluency among students in both English and Spanish.

Together, they will learn about the history of Latin America and Spain through the work of artists who have practiced “artivism” — social justice activism through art. The Northwestern students will conduct their own research on Hispanic/Latinx artists to create content to teach the public school students, and work with them in small groups to practice advanced language skills.

Bouras has been teaching Spanish for more than 20 years and has long been interested in engaging students in exploratory and collective learning. Her teaching/research interests include differentiated instruction, second-language writing, the role of emotions in the language classroom and teaching grammar through literature.

Administered by the Office of the Provost, the award recognizes and supports faculty who have innovative ideas for new courses, methods of instruction and components of existing classes.

The award comes with $12,500 in funding to be split between innovation development ($7,000), stipend ($5,000) and the faculty member’s home department ($500). The two honorees also will be recognized during a reception in the spring.

Northwestern Now, January 25, 2023

Click here for the program from The Alumnae of Northwestern University's 2023 Annual Meeting

Carol Liu, Alumnae Scholar

Alumnae Scholarship Recipient, 2023

Carol Liu, from Chicago, Ill., Class of 2024, is the recipient of The Alumnae of Northwestern University’s Undergraduate Scholarship. This award, established in 1997, provides undergraduate scholarships with preference to a woman whose family member (her brother in this case) has attended Northwestern University. The three-year award, chosen by the Office of Financial Aid, honors a student in good academic standing. Carol is the 9th Alumnae Undergraduate Scholar. Carol’s major is applied mathematics and computer science in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. She was drawn to Northwestern because of its strong disciplines (Applied Mathematics and Computer Science), particularly in STEM, as well as research opportunities. With this scholarship, Carol notes that she can worry less about the financial burden of school and focus more on pursuing her BS in Applied Math and MS in Computer Science. “It encourages me to continue pursuing my passions and makes me more determined to achieve my goals and have a positive impact on the real world.”

Carol has held jobs as a peer mentor for two different computer science courses and is also currently doing research. As a peer mentor, she guides students through computer science courses and helps them, if they are confused, with projects or homework. As a researcher, she is helping improve a model that uses wastewater data to predict the prevalence of diseases like COVID-19 throughout Illinois. “I learned that research is interdisciplinary, so I have to communicate effectively with people who do not necessarily have the same technical background.” Carol Willis, president of The Alumnae of Northwestern University says, “We are so proud to honor Carol Liu with this award and to support an undergraduate researcher, enabling her to focus on her education, mixing both her interests, applied math and computer science.”

Click here to read the complete News Release.

Brent E. Huffman, Teaching Professorship Recipient

Alumnae Teaching Professorship Recipient, 2023

Brent E. Huffman is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and a passionate professor of documentary filmmaking. Huffman aims to train “leaders in documentary journalism who will advance the medium creatively and responsibly,” his nomination states. (excerpt from Northwestern News)

Read the complete article about Brent E. Huffman in the Northwestern News.

Click here for the program from The Alumnae of Northwestern University's 2023 Annual Meeting