 So once again, good morning, everybody. My name is Kitey Vann, the Stuart Chip Officer for Rackham. It's my pleasure to welcome you to this special program celebrating our generous donors and our remarkable students that you support. We can't wait to host you at Rackham once again, but we're excited to have this opportunity to thank you from afar for all that you do for graduate education at Michigan. Later in the program, you'll hear a little bit from some of these outstanding student scholars and you'll have a chance to engage with them and ask them questions as well. First, I'd like to recognize and thank some of the folks behind the scenes who are joining us today. I might have my colleagues here from the development team, but we also have some colleagues from our fellowships and financial aid team. They are the ones to kind of make sure that those generous donor funds make it to the students who need it. So thank you so much. I see Adam Lucier with us. He works directly with our students. They get that work done. Him and his team do a lot of great work on that end. So thank you. Now I'm excited to introduce Dean Mike Solomon who will share a Rackham update followed by a question and answer. So as he's speaking, make sure you go ahead and think about some of those burning questions that you have for him. Mike. Thanks, Kaya. And I'll second Kaya say I'm very happy to have some discussion after these remarks. I just had a quick audio difficulty. So I'm just going to quickly ask Kaya if my sound is still okay. Does it just give me a thumbs up? Great. Thanks very much. So well, thank you all as well for joining us today on this kind of earlier late morning depending on what time zone you're in or perhaps even at other times. So I'm really delighted, well, first to be able to join you with some of our outstanding Rackham students who will be sharing their research and scholarship in a few moments. But before we get to that, I wanted to share just a little bit about what we've been up to at Rackham, what we have on the front burner in the next year and some things that are launching really right now. But first, just for those of you that we all would like to have you here for homecoming weekend, understand that it's still a very dynamic and uncertain time with respect to the pandemic. And so we really are delighted to have this virtual event underway. For those of us here at Ann Arbor, our fall term is underway and it's been wonderful to be back. I think the students have really welcomed the opportunity to have some of the interactions that are really challenging. Like we can do really great things virtually and it's really wonderful, especially at this moment where it can be a little bit outside to have the opportunity for us to be together. In terms of back on one of the reasons why I think we've been able to take that step is that the university has required all faculty, staff and students as a policy of around vaccination for COVID-19. And we do have a sense of optimism about our term and the future here at Ann Arbor to within a factor of the dynamicism and uncertainty that I talked about that I think continues to be frank does continue to create stress for a number of us in the community as we try to do our work to support graduate education and graduate students. And so I'm really grateful for everybody in the campus that is kind of working together to have the term that we can. So, and then kind of the switch to Rackham in addition to that, we have continued to explore ideas to transform the graduate education. Some of you may have had the opportunity to hear me speak on this in previous years. And I really like to take a moment to give you an update today about some of the ideas and plans that we are undertaking that are launching now had a really wonderful state of the graduate school address on Wednesday that in which we kind of did the campus launch of these. And so it's very timely for me to be able to update you today as well. So one example of what we have on the front burners are new Rackham doctoral internship program. It's become clear that graduate training today requires more than just exceptional academic preparation doctoral students who conduct research, think, and write at the highest level. They possess expertise that's in demand across just a broad range of fields in our knowledge driven economy and world. Today's career is whether in academia, industry, government or nonprofit sectors demand an additional set of skills and experience. And our doctoral students must now be able to collaborate within diverse environments, analyze complex problems using interdisciplinary approaches. We need to be able to communicate advanced knowledge effectively and provide leadership that inspires others. So for this reason, we're pursuing a historic shift in how University of Michigan doctoral students are trained and prepared for their careers. This internship program will allow selected doctoral candidates to pursue a fully supported internship as part of their graduate training. The internships offer students a professional experience that could be in government, in a startup, in a nonprofit or in a corporate setting, all being tailored to meet the needs of partner organizations and also the skills and experiences of our doctoral students who have this just wonderful training and research and scholarship. So I think this initiative will provide a crucial experiential learning opportunity for students. It's one that not only illustrates the value of their training for employers in a wide range of fields, but also demonstrates to doctoral students the applicability of their skills and their research and scholarship of findings and methods in a diverse set of professional settings. So the next two items I'd like to address that we're working on pertain to our school's longstanding and deep commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. First, I'd like to speak a little bit about the Rack of Merit Fellowship Program, which is our largest single investment at the graduate school. The goal of the Rack of Merit Fellowship Program, we called the shorthand the RMF. The goal of RMF is to recruit, support, and graduate outstanding students who contribute to UN's goals of excellence, climate, inclusion, and diversity. In the last two years, we've staged a review of the RMF that's been we conducted to best position the program for the future. It included a Rackham self-study team and also an external faculty review committee. And as a first step, I've implemented a recommendation to bring all the elements of the RMF program together as one team within Rackham. We've also invested additional funds in programming and fellowships. And I'm gonna continue to pursue additional recommendations of the review teams going forward in collaboration with this new team. In addition, a major focus of our DNI strategy plan is the development of diversity, equity, and inclusion is the development of policy changes that address inequities in the graduate admissions process. And in so doing so, strengthen the diversity and excellence of Rackham programs. So we see an opportunity to further advance our admission practices. And this was really generated upon review of the use of the graduate record examination. This is called the GRE, these general test scores here at Michigan. Extensive research generates that the GRE general test, which is a standardized test that has been historically used for admissions and graduate education. Research has generated that it's a poor indicator of doctoral student success in graduate school, particularly with respect to the measures of success that we care about the most. And I think of degree completion and also the performance of research and scholarship. So using these scores, I also think furthermore extends the harmful legacies of unequal access to doctoral education on the basis of race, gender, and socioeconomic status. And I also think the submission of GRE scores creates unnecessary financial and logistical barriers that deter well qualified students from applying for doctoral studies. So as a result, Rackham is now pursuing a community discussion with the goal of ending the use of GRE and doctoral program admissions, beginning with the 2022-23 admission cycle. So over the course of the fall term, I'll be engaging with graduate faculty and others in the UM community about this proposal for Rackham, its rationale, and its potential implementation with the aim of making the decision about this by the end of the term. So, and as I wrap up these brief remarks, I would like to conclude by discussing some steps we are taking to promote graduate student mental health and wellbeing, and also to support students who seek disability accommodations at the university. So Rackham has recognized that mental health has direct and disparate consequences for the success of our graduate students. And in this period, it needs continuous attention from Rackham programs, our staff, and faculty. Back in June, 2019, in response, we set up a task force of faculty, staff, students, and mental health professionals. And their charge was to identify major factors that influence graduate student mental health and wellbeing, with the goal of identifying changes that the Rackham community itself could take to better support student wellbeing. One key recommendation of the task force that I'd like to mention today was the creation of a long-term standing committee, no longer a task force, but a group, a resource that can support the graduate school as it works to meet these goals in the long term. In response, we've created, and I'm really pleased to announce, the Rackham committee on graduate student mental health and wellbeing, this committee will, among other projects, work to create resources so that graduate programs are better equipped to support the wellbeing of their own students at every level, from ways of connecting and communicating the types of academic policies. It's the idea to understand that academic stress and academic success and stress are related. And Rackham can provide resources to programs to help them navigate that important balance and connection. So we also have efforts to extend disability accommodations as we strive to make the campus climate more welcome for graduate students with disabilities. I look forward to steps we'll be taking in that space as well in the coming year, specifically about improving education and compliance in programs, and also to offer a workshop that will increase understanding among Rackham graduate programs about how this important support works in graduate education. So thank you for hearing this brief update about graduate education and graduate students at the university. I'd now be pleased in the next few minutes to answer your questions. I think Kaya's gonna be our fearless moderator, so you can use the chat box, you can submit questions to her directly or you can raise your hand, or however else Kaya wants to receive questions, and then I'll take them from there. Thank you. You can also feel free to just unmute yourself now. We do have one to kick us off, Mike. We're wondering with the return to campus this fall and all of the things we've learned over the last year and a half or so, what are a couple of the things that are really guiding your decisions as we sort of navigate this new type of year? Yes, so I think there's a couple of factors that I would mention, and I think maybe two that I feel like I'm constantly really continually trying to integrate. So one is kind of listening to the university and the community kind of reading and understanding about the dynamicism and uncertainty of the pandemic. So I would kind of put that kind of writ large as something the university is in many spaces offering data, offering kind of expert opinion or advice and recommendations from a central kind of group that is constantly reviewing the data. A lot of that data is public. So that's one way I think for us all to kind of increase our understanding about, we can read in the news about what the pandemic and situation looks like in our state, in our country. And for the local context, I really try to rely on these publicly released data. And then just trying to integrate that with our need to kind of pursue our mission to support graduate students and graduate education. And how is the way that we can kind of do both of those at the same time? So that's one piece that kind of putting together. And then the other piece I would add is just as much kind of flexibility, empathy, trying to meet individuals where they are and recognize that there's many flexible ways to meet those goals, especially given the inherent flexibility and open-ended nature of graduate education. And so we continue, for example, to have expanded eligibility criteria for the Rackham Emergency Fund to assist students that are unique situations. And the other thing, the last piece I'll say just before I wrap this up is really just being available to not just listen, but to engage in dialogue. So I think one change that I've learned from last year that we kind of walked into is the year went on is being in continual conversation with graduate students through partnership with events that Rackham Student Government puts together through students of color of Rackham and also through graduate Rackham International. This is a way for us at the graduate school to just understand what the experiences of students are, what's important. I would just take an example that I think, parking, for example, has been just a huge issue at this moment for graduate students in the previous, there's not always things that we can do that directly as a graduate school, but just learning that this is what is important allows us to communicate that information through the university and try to support students who themselves are very effective advocates for their situation. So let me stop there, Kaya. And that just gives you a little bit of a sense of how we're trying to navigate the moment through dialogue and keeping our eye on what we're really trying to accomplish at the graduate school. Thanks, Mike. We've got a couple more questions more directly related to a few of the changes that you mentioned. Tom Kush would like to know if you could talk a little bit more about the admissions process and how it will change with the elimination of the GRE requirement. Great, thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity to address this in a little bit more detail. So Rackham for many years, as I mentioned, has really advanced this idea of what we call holistic admissions, which is really responding and understanding and thinking about the goals of the degree and the multiple dimensions around knowledge, skills, potential experience that can be brought from the application. And so we already work with programs through admissions to have, even for programs that might be using the GRE. And I would have to say most programs in Rackham are no longer using the graduate record examination. That is the continual literature in both expanding fields, showing that it's not predictive of these outcomes for graduate education that are most important to us has led to its de-emphasis. So the proposal that we're evaluating, I want to stress it's a proposal, like we really need to go through discussion with all the graduate faculty, there's 3,300 graduate faculty, 100 doctoral programs, would be that those scores would no longer be entered onto the Rackham application. So the idea is that programs would have holistic admissions processes and they would not make use of this indicator that does not correlate or does not correlate with the things that we care about for the degree. So those data would be unavailable. We need to work with, we wanna have our programs work with them to understand what would their admissions practices look like, we really want them to be looking for talent and potential and achievement in the across the broadest set of applications possible from the greatest number of institutions. And this is all requires time and effort by faculty and we wanna help them kind of walk into this in a way that it's gonna allow them that I think will be advantage for recruiting the best classes going forward. And I think there's some real value in University of Michigan doing this in the concerted way that we're proposing because it will really put University of Michigan make clear to applicants that we are looking at their potential for success in graduate school based on their experiences that they had as part of their undergraduate degree in the disciplines that they wanna study and not using a test that has a, can potentially can potentially perpetuate inequities that have been present in higher education and even in our own institution. Thanks for the opportunity to talk a little bit more about that and I'm happy to answer a follow-up as well if another, if there would be one. Thanks Mike. We have a question regarding the internships that you mentioned, the doctoral internships. Mark Johnson would like to know just a little bit more detail about the internships, kind of the funding around them, the support in finding those roles. Can you take a little bit more to that? Yes, so this will be a partnership with the programs but I think RACM is really trying to identify, I think the role for programs is to create space in their curriculum and to generate faculty support for students. So something we've heard from alums that have followed a range of career paths is that faculty support makes a big difference in this. That you don't, knowing that you're doing this with the backing of your program sometimes there's limits to what can be provided but just that sense of support is really instrumental. So we really like to work with programs so that they create a foundation or a culture in which doing internships is really part of a successful doctoral career and I think that is changing across the campus. What RACM would like to do is help to kind of, if you like, help with the match. So engage internship sites, talk to them about what the benefits are to have doctoral candidates that with these really critical and important skills and research and scholarship and try to pair them with interested students. We have some experience doing this. We have a program that's already up and running in the humanities and social sciences and we've been pretty successful in supporting students and sites through both getting ready to do this and then also some of the logistics of it. And the final piece is really through, I think the leadership and vision of our alums and donors. We really want this program in the long term to be a premier RACM fellowship supported through our community in the way that, for example, the RACM pre-doctoral fellowship is and a number of the other fellowships that we offer. So I think this is also a key part. Doctoral funding, as you all know, is a really critical piece of success for doctoral studies and if we can kind of take that on in the graduate school, that will increase the engagement of programs, I think. So I think in terms of the support, RACM is really looking to provide, to have this be a premier fellowship program that is equal in stature to the programs that many of you know about our pre-doctoral program, our Barbara Scholar program. I could go on and on the RACM fellowship program. I think this is something that RACM can contribute to the effort as well. Thank you. Thanks, Mike. And we have just enough time for one more question if anyone has one that they'd like to offer. Oh, I have one. Oh, yes. I could be asking. So I'm Cynthia Mariana-Sconzales and I'll be speaking a little bit later. But I'm wondering, are there any, is there involvement or room for involvement for graduate students to kind of be a part of those position-making or kind of research that's backing up all these changes for like diversity, equity and inclusion that are happening at RACM? Yes, thank you. So I think there's a number of opportunities and we're looking for, and I'll mention them and we're actually really open to learning about additional ways for students to perform this work, to work with us, to collaborate with us. So just a couple of things I wanna say just briefly. So within RACM, some of the ideas that we've talked about were really launched and formulated by what we affectionately call RACDAC, which is the RACM Diversity and Equity Inclusion kind of advisory committee. And that actually includes faculty, students, alums and staff. So that is a lot of the genesis of what you see actually has come from that advisory committee. And then also like through RACM student government, we have additional participation in the executive board and we're increasingly trying to engage students on a number of like especially advisory committees as well. And then the other thing I would just mention two quick other possibilities. So RACM will occasionally have the opportunity for, for example, for GSRAs or GSSAs to kind of actually come and do some of the work, particularly around data within our institutional research group. And then also sometimes in programming development. So for example, with respect to RAC American Fellowship Program. And so those are posted positions that we kind of recruit for just as all positions like that would be posted around the campus. And the other part I would like to say is I would really like to forefront student work within programs itself. So I really wanna be clear that for this to work, it kind of needs every level of student engagement. And so I've seen so much change within programs through student engagement with faculty leadership either through a graduate student organization or a graduate student participating on a graduate committee. And I really at every spot with faculty, I try to just emphasize that that level of connection I think is also critical to the success of any campus wide initiative due to the distributed nature of how things work in the graduate school. So I hope that's helpful. And I'm really actually open to other ideas to learn as well because I think this is, just for the whole audience, you may have heard kind of our tagline if you like for what we're doing. And we talk about it as student-centered, faculty-led and RACM supported. And I think the student-centered and faculty-led piece like the faculty do kind of give the curriculum, they perform the mentoring, but they really need to hear from students for it to be truly student-centered. And so that's where I think the opportunity is is for that student-centered and faculty-led piece to interact in ways that are deliberate. Hope that helps Cynthia. I'm happy to engage more around that. Thank you so much, Mike. And since we do need to move along to get to hear some more from our panelists, I will go ahead and thank everyone for your questions. And Mike, if I could have you introduce them, that would be wonderful. Great, thank you. It's now my delight. So thank you for that discussion. I really enjoyed it. It's really helpful to hear your questions and feedback. Now I'd like to kind of turn to the main event, which is to introduce our student speakers and there'll be the opportunity for a question and answer with them as well. So I will introduce them briefly and then turn things back over to Kaya to get us going. So our first individual I'd like to introduce is Shi Wang. Shi Wang is a PhD candidate in civil engineering, studying human-robot collaboration as it is used in construction work. Her dissertation proposes a transformative system to promote robot autonomy, reduce workers' physical and mental workload and create a safer and more inclusive working environment. Through the development of what's called digital twins, she establishes the foundation of next-generation construction work by transitioning the role of workers from manual task performers to robot supervisors. As a Barbara scholar, she joins a community of women who illustrate the importance of a global graduate experience of the impact of donors who see the brilliance in others. The Barbara scholarship will provide support as she strengthens her robotics technological skills and research record during the final year of doctoral work. Next is Bassoon Leyende. Bassoon is a PhD student in chemical engineering. His research focuses on the use of photovoltaic cells and thermal photovoltaic applications so as to convert thermal radiation from local hot sources to electricity. This technology is critical, very exciting, on the path to addressing some challenges involving intermittency of renewable energy sources like wind and solar. He hopes to build a career that adds value to the global transition to renewable energy. Bassoon received the Dorothy Hall Brophy, Jerry Hall Brophy and Elaine Wright Brophy Morial Endowment Scholarship, which he says not only supports him but is a recognition of his efforts and provides affirmation in the face of imposter syndrome. Next I'd like to introduce Nathalie Montplaiseur. Nathalie Montplaiseur is a PhD candidate in pharmacology and her work merges multiple disciplines to address complex multifactorial disease states. Her primary interest lies with G-protein coupled receptors. These are called GPCRs, which are common pharmacological targets found throughout the body. She is currently working in the SmecoLab where she is identifying and characterizing specifically the guy family of these GPCRs. Nathalie is the recipient of the Phyllis M. Wise Award and is grateful for the support of donors who help mitigate barriers that may fall into students' personal paths. She noticed this support as integral to stepping closer to her vision of being a contributor to the next generation of scientists. Next I'd like to introduce Cynthia Magdanelianis, Cynthia is a doctoral student in psychology for research centers on migration and race in North Africa, specifically examining the intersections of immigration status, race, class, and gender in Morocco, where she traveled as a recipient of a full-bite research grant. As a RACOM Public Engagement Fellow, her internship was sponsored by the TW Kirchinski Family Fund. The goal of her work over the summer was to improve conditions and provide support for human trafficking survivors in illustration of the great impact of her work and the generosity of those who support it. Next, Cassidy Campbell. Cassidy is a doctoral candidate in American culture exploring how black girls shape and are shaped by the internet, focusing on moments when black girls' narratives and ways of knowing called epistemologies have been flattened by the internet's infrastructure. Her current project has roots in her experience as a support teacher working with middle school children with learning disabilities. With the help of the Rosalind M. Abrans Fund, Cassidy has been able to purchase transcripts and services and compensate her research participants for their time and generosity of sharing their experience, giving back, as she says, to those who make this work possible. So with that, I'm really delighted to introduce our panelists today and really looking forward to what I'll learn from them. Kaya, over to you, thanks. Yes, and I will actually just go ahead and have Ji-Wang go ahead and kick us off. Yeah, hello, everyone. I'm Ji-Wang and I'm a fourth year PhD student in civil engineering. I work with Professor Carol Manasa and Professor Vinit Khamad on construction robotics. Construction has a higher number of fatalities and non-fatal injuries among all industries. Well, automation and robotics play a role in other industries like manufacturing. The construction industry is still manual and labor-intensive. This is because the very nature of construction is challenging for robot adoption. If you imagine a factory assembly line, the products move to the robot and the robot repeats the motion again and again. However, in construction, each building is unique and it cannot move. And the construction side is very dynamic and unstructured with moving workers, equipment and materials placed in here and there. The tolerance is loose, so the materials and the place where they are finally installed might not be exactly the same as the design. And these uncertainties, while the human workers can handle it well, it is very difficult for the robot to handle with its current cognitive capacities. So in my research, instead of letting the robot replace human, I let them work together. Humans can do the high-level task planning and handle uncertainties like a manager and robot like their system can perform physical work. They can do it quickly and precisely. And they can also perform low-level trajectory planning with their calculation capabilities. With this in mind, I proposed a collaborative human-robot collaboration system. And in the system, I created a digital twin for the construction side and robot in immersive VR, the virtual reality for the human to interact with the robot remotely in a safer workplace other than construction site. And there are sensors like cameras installed on site that communicate with the VR interface. So the human workers can visualize the construction site conditions in real time from VR. And through the interface, the human can interact with the robot, send high-level commands and supervises working status. For example, after the robot developed a detailed movement trajectory, the human can preview simulated robot movement in VR and either decline or approve it to ensure safe operation. My current goal is to use deep learning and reinforcement learning technologies to make the robot smarter for interacting with human. Let the robot become a smarter systems that understand human intention better and be able to perform more tasks with fewer commands. With the robot assistance, construction industry will be more inclusive and safer and people don't need to be super powerful to work on construction sites. Overall, my research aims to create a much safer, productive and comfortable construction and built environment through human-centered automation and robotics technologies. In the future, I plan to work on developing an automated connected interaction system among human, robot and infrastructure using interdisciplinary research methods that includes not only utilizing visualization, interaction and building models to promote human-robot collaboration, but also using physiological sensing to optimize worker's performance, mental status and well-being. Also, I'm interested in watching robot and infrastructure intelligence to achieve a better level of learning and interaction with human. And that's all about my research. And thank you all. Thank you, Chi. Once we go through all of the panelists, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions of each of them. So make sure that you're keeping them in the back of your head as we go. Basun, can I go ahead and have you go next, please? Yep. My name is Basun. I'm very blinded. And I'm from Nigeria. I had my undergrad in the University of Lagos, Nigeria. And I'm a third year PhD candidate in chemical engineering. And my research focus is on the use of them for the robotic cells or them for the robotic applications. So as we transition to renewable energy to fully integrate these renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, we need to realize some form of energy storage such that we would be able to use this renewable energy during times of high demand. So I'm working on thermoportable take applications that can be used for both, you know, direct cogeneration of heat and energy and can also help in energy storage. And basically we are using an indium gallium arsenide cell and we are also trying to transition into silicon just to reduce the cost of fabrication of these devices. And also in future, I'll be thinking of the repercussions that comes with transitioning to renewable energy and its impact on minority households where they use, you know, higher energy-intensive, higher energy-intensive utilities and such that they don't spend most of their money on most of their incomes on electricity because they use devices that are not energy efficient. And, you know, these are some of the things that I'll be thinking of as I transition as we think about the technology, I'll also be thinking about the human side of this technology as well. So basically that is my research. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Natalie, can you please share yours with us? Yes, I'll be sharing my screen and we'll quick to make it more visual. Sure. Okay. So this is me, I'm Natalie Montesier, I'm a Haitian immigrant. I will stop the subtitles. So this is who I am. So I was born and raised in Haiti and then I immigrated to the U.S. eight years ago where I continued my high school studies and undergraduate studies and right now my graduate studies. And I went to an HBCU, Tuskegee University where I earned my bachelor's degree in chemistry. And right now I'm at the, in the pharmacology department at the University of Michigan in the Smirka Lab where I studied these G-protein coupled receptors that are found again throughout all body and these are very important for physiological functions. And so right now they are the target of 34% FDA approved drugs. As we can see over time that again, these drugs have been helping us target these receptors for the purpose of alleviating pathophysiological conditions. And so this is what they look like. They're in cell membrane. These are the GPCRs right here. They work with G-proteins that again can couple to them and allow diverse signaling pathways to occur inside the cell. So again, there are different G-proteins, G-alpha-S, G-alpha-I, Q-12-13 and then the beta-gamma subunit. And again, they are found throughout the body and are important for physiological functions. And so you can imagine that if there are any, there's any disruption in the signaling pathways this will again lead to again pathophysiological conditions such as heart failure, asthma and many, many more. And so in the SMERCA lab, we study the G-alpha-I, the G-protein subunit for further physiological functions. Basically, it's been known that this G-alpha-I binds to a particular effector that is adenine cyclase that I'm not gonna elaborate here. But in our lab, we do find that these G-proteins can couple to other effectors that have not been shown in the literature before and these are important again for cellular processes that translate to physiological function. So we're using this method in the lab right now that allows us to basically find out or identify potential novel effectors of these G-proteins subunit that is pictured here. And then we do have a volcano plot that looks like here, like this that allows us to identify all of these potential novel effectors and further characterize them in our lab for the purpose of again, producing new knowledge in the G-protein carbon receptor field that can help maybe patients or any of these interaction that can be important in any diseases. And besides research, I'm also part of organizations on campus because again, I lived as I climb and I feel like being at this level, I did not have people who look like me. I did not always see people who look like me in the STEM field. And so I'm part of these organizations where I'm able to teach students from underrepresented groups and again, show myself where I am and so they can be inspired to become scientists. And with that being said, I would like to acknowledge my lab, the Pharmacology Department, at the University of Michigan, my funding source is here, RMF, NSFJRFP and the NIH funded PSCP. And I would also like to thank Dr. Phyllis Wise because of our contribution, because again, with science, I'm very focused on that, but there's also personal aspect that can come and kind of limit my focus to science. And so I'm very grateful for Dr. Phyllis Wise for her contribution in my Academy career. Thank you. Thank you, Natalie. I love that lift as you climb. Yes. Cynthia. Hi, everyone. So I'm Cynthia and I am currently in my second year of my PhD here at the University of Michigan in Sociology. So I just wanna start by thanking Dean Solomon for the introduction, Kaya and the team for putting this event on and all our alum that are here today and donors as well. So my research focuses on immigration and race in North Africa. And I study a group of immigrants that are coming from the Sub-Saharan Africa kind of geographical region and are trying to transit and enter into Europe and get stuck in Morocco doing so. And specifically I try to focus on how experiences of mobility kind of shape gender roles and family roles as well. I recently have started focusing more on like activism and social change that a lot of refugees are kind of trying to push. And I think with today's political climate it's kind of becoming more apparent that refugee settlement and immigration policies isn't something that countries can afford to ignore anymore because it'll just kind of backfire in the future. So it's kind of I'm trying to be part of the debate that kind of scholars that find sustainable solutions for refugees. And so my own research experience or research interests kind of grew from my personal story. So my parents were immigrants in the United States. I grew up living in kind of Los Angeles but also traveling between California and Mexico as my family had to relocate many times because they were seasonal farm workers. And so with that said, of course I am the first person in my family to attend and graduate college. And I'm also the first person in my family to go to a graduate degree and get a PhD. Growing up I didn't even know what a PhD was. I had, as someone who was the daughter of immigrant farm workers I never really thought that this was the vision that was possible for me. So I wanna thank you all for your generous support. I was able to kind of build on my academic careers and I realized that with immigration studies we also need practical solutions and not just academia and theories to understand the social changes that are happening and creating policy solutions. So I was able to intern this summer with the refugee led nonprofit because I believe that at the end of the day it is refugees themselves who know what they have suffered and can kind of, you know similar to RACM having like a student centered I think policies for refugees should be refugee centered and immigrant centered, right? And I was able to do that and kind of use my research skills in a very practical way and help refugees who were victims of human trafficking or smuggling kind of share their voices and try to impact Moroccan law and create like a national law in Morocco that would kind of have a victim led policy solution for people who are victims of human trafficking. A lot of the times many people tend to criminalize women and children and men too who are victims of human trafficking. So we're trying to kind of implement and push for solutions that are offering services and decriminalized people who have suffered so much already. And so now I'm as a second year I am also kind of very involved in giving back to those people in my program who might have come from similar backgrounds as myself and who might not feel represented here in the university at large. Although I do wanna say that I really appreciate the RACM program because when I was trying to decide what university to attend for my graduate degrees I just really felt like University of Michigan was just kind of distinguished from any other program because of RACM. Things like the RACM merit fellow they have a huge impact on whether or not students from marginalized background are going to come to the university or not. And I think we're seeing that there are a lot of students who from working class backgrounds for a generation students who want to attend University of Michigan because of programs like RMF and things like the GRE being optional would kind of increase that attendance rate I think. And it really among us graduate students a lot of us have made our decision to attend here because of that generous support that other graduate programs in the nation might not offer. So now I am a GSI, a graduate student instructor and I'm starting to teach undergraduate in the university and I'm just trying to get back to mentorship and kind of helping as Natalie said lift as I climb as well. So thank you so much. Thank you Zambia and finally Cassidy. Hi everyone, I wanna share my screen quickly also as well. I think this is working. All right, so my dissertation as you guys heard thinks about how black girls are shaped and are shaped to buy the internet but I'm also interested in the fullness of black girls' personhood. And I seek to understand how they assert their own quotidian perspectives in the face of the same technologies that are often used to face them. And I also study how their lives become two dimensional in the pursuit of justice through national political agendas by different stakeholders and organizations that claim to be organizing on their behalf. I feel that their lives become flattened and don't account for the gendered, sexual, age, geographic color and class distinctions that animate their lives. And so these are the case studies that are primarily driving my dissertation so far. There are three young black girls who were wrongfully murdered, Sakia Gunn who's on the far left. Then we have Kenika Jenkins and then on the far right we have Tahisha Millard and they were all impacted by violence in different ways but what's of importance to me is thinking about how can I write about them and write them into our history? How can I write them as important historical figures and historical actors who have left an impact even though they aren't considered or wouldn't be considered sort of exceptional, right? They are ordinary everyday black girls that I believe stories deserve to be lifted and written about carefully. And this summer and with the funding I have been able to interview families and talk with them about something that's deeply painful and deeply harmful for them. And I think back to I think Dean Solomon's point about mental health, right? Doing the work that I do also impacts my mental health. Talking with these families about some very, very tragic moments in their lives and making sure that I do the work in a trauma-informed way. And also making sure I take time to kind of rehabilitate myself as well, you know? So I've made sure to surround myself with love and family and have a strong support system but I think it's just, I think these girls' names deserve to be written about and not again, as I said, flattened into sort of instruments for any other sort of political agendas or goals that don't really account for the fullness of who they were when they lived. And so I guess my graduate experience has been I think due to programs like RMF and being a Mellon Mace fellow and from undergrad and those are the programs that have sustained me and helping me navigate what it means to go through graduate school which can be really a mystified place. And it shouldn't be, but I think what's important to me is that I've been able to demystify it for myself and demystify it for the people that I'm connecting with to write about these girls and to honor them and to honor the girls that I'm writing about as well. So yeah, I think I've been fortunate to be able to find advisors that have helped me navigate the work that I'm doing and write about it pretty well. I'm hoping, and that's Lisa Nakamura and LaKeisha Simmons and so I'm really, really grateful for their mentorship and their guidance for the last, I'm in my fifth year. Wow, five years as I'm going through this process that I'm just hoping to continue to indulge in all the resources that Rackham has to offer so that I can spend time writing and doing the work that I need to do because this is my ticket. My dissertation is my ticket through academia and beyond. And so I'm hoping to just continue to write right now and I'm getting involved in other sort of activist projects within the community that I'm in but I'm mostly trying to make sure that I'm building meaningful connections with the different family members and friends of these girls. And then I've done a lot of work in the last five years of different organizations and I think the theme is lifting as we climb and that's where I hope I can continue to do but if I don't do my work then I can't help anybody. So right now that is the focus. So I just wanna thank Rackham. I wanna thank RMF. I wanna thank Mellon, my advisors, my department for being really supportive and especially Mellon for helping me figure out what it means to apply to graduate school and to figure out be lucky enough to find a program that supports me so well and helps me to do the work that is of my best interest as well, so thank you. Great, thank you so much, Gaffety. And to all of our panelists, thank you so much. Just the rest put in the chat, it's so wonderful to hear all of you doing such human-centered work which does seem to be the theme among so many of our graduate students. I would like to allow the opportunity for folks to ask questions if they'd like now. Please feel free to either put it in the chat or just go ahead and unmute. Gee, my name's Eric Monberg and I was a Rackham scholar many years ago and also worked in construction during the summers. And I was just curious, where do you see the first wave of robots having an impact? Would it be at the laborers level or more skilled trades, carpenters or electrical work? Yeah, for what I perceived now, it's like the robot is in construction, it should be work together with prefabrication. Like some of the small pieces are prefabricated in factory. Maybe it's also by robot and when it was bring to the construction site the robot can also do some assembly like carpentry or either electrical or carpentry on that pieces. So that's what I perceived that can shift the construction industry. Thank you. Yes, I'm John Scanlon and I have a question for Saroi Leinda. The question has to do with the way in which people who are working on energy storage throughout the country connect with one another or understand one another's projects and research. I'm an English professor but I bring this up because I've become friends with Professor Roy Gordon at Harvard who is in the chemistry department and is working on energy storage with a lab and a group of grad students and so on. And I was just wondering one if you know of his research but really more broadly how the different area the different projects with people at different universities with regard to energy storage connect to one another and what's going on. Thank you for that question. Good question. So conventionally now we use lithium ion batteries as storage and they're expensive. So due to the improvement of research we have different energy storage. For example, I'm working on thermal batteries which is like a thermal energy storage and another research is working on some other research can be working on compressed energy storage and we have gravity storage and a lot more different research and they use different fundamental methods to store energy and convert back to electricity. But one thing is even though they have different fundamental methods they can be combined to store energy. For example, now if I have a company or like some large factory I can still utilize lithium ion batteries and also utilize thermal batteries at the same time to store electricity. So even though we're working individually to make these different energy storage we can also utilize every method together. And also mind you, we also have the cost as well the cost implications. So everyone is trying to make the energy storage energy storage cheaper such that people can use them. So we have different restrictions. For example, gravity storage it can be restricted by location and thermal batteries it can be restricted by insulation for example. So we have different but the plan is for us to be able to use all these together in future to better transition to renewable energy. Thanks so much. Fascinating topic. Yep, thank you, sir. We've got time for one or two more. I have a question if I could, is that okay? Yeah, go ahead, Mike. Yeah, thank you. My question is for Cassidy and for Cynthia. Really remarkable work that you're doing and it made me think about it more having done it in the last year. Cassidy, you talked about the connection to mental health and wellbeing. I wanted to ask just a bit about like you are going into the community to, I guess I understand like to talk with and engage with members that have been impacted in the way around your topic. And Cynthia, you have work in Morocco. Did you need to adapt your methods that both of you would like in the last year? And if so, how did you kind of navigate that? I know often you have a plan for dissertation, understands that things need to change, but this seemed like an extraordinary amount of change. So I would enjoy just a brief comment from both of you as to what that might have looked like or if I'm not understanding that correctly. Thanks. Yeah, I can go ahead and start. So with the pandemic, it was really tough to kind of do in-person research. So I actually ended up working pretty well. I was already in Morocco as part of my semester. And so I just ended up meeting with people virtually or on the phone and doing a lot of like interviews through that way to kind of respect social distancing, et cetera. But in terms of the pandemic, it is a little, it was a little kind of under control in Morocco comparison to this. So that was also very interesting because I was kind of like living there and things were open but socially distanced. And then I would contact friends back in Ann Arbor and it was kind of the opposite here. So that was also interesting. But a lot of my field work and things like the RACM Language Fund was able to support things like having the appropriate language to kind of go inside of the field that I work in and talk to participants in my area as well. Yeah, I also had to adapt and do virtual interviews. The Zoom became my friend and also became hard to kind of track down people sometimes because everyone was, I mean, we're going through pandemic, people are experiencing loss and all that other stuff and grieving. And so just being patient and reaching out to, I kind of somehow became a detective and would find certain people and call them and they would vouch for me and say, talk to this person and this and that. So I kind of really built a community of people that began to trust me and so they could vouch for me as I got closer and closer to say, for example, the family of some of my subjects. So yeah, it was really hard. But I think what I appreciate about it is that it gave me a little bit more room and distance so that I didn't have to fit everything into one sort of sitting or one week or two week period. I can come back a few months later like, hey, I know that was pretty heavy. Can we talk about this aspect that we didn't get to last time and stuff like that? So it's actually still allowed my work to develop pretty well, despite everything that's been going on. Great, and then I did have one last question here and this one is for Natalie. So first, how did you come to work in the lab that you're in and then what is your greatest hope for the work that you're doing? Oh, sure, yeah. So again, I was a chemist by training. So when I joined pharmacology, we don't do a lot of chemistry. It's mostly interdisciplinary. So we use a lot of different methods. So basically what happened is the first semester, I took a pharmacology class and I learned about gefields and cathode receptors and I was very intrigued by how they are so important and they have these diverse signaling pathways inside of our body and that they're just so prominent in our body and again, all common drug targets. So because again, I was a chemist and I like organic chemistry and I like to understand how things work and I can also apply that to the biological aspects. So I just decided to join the lab during the pandemic. I couldn't really rotate but I was able to read papers and then once I was able to come back to lab a few months later, then I started working. What's the other part of the question I did? What is your greatest hope for the work that you're doing? What is the ideal impact that you'd like to make? Okay, great question. So because again, I'm working on identifying and characterizing novel effectors that interact with the street proteins. I'm working on one of them now, which is ADNP and it's very important for proper brain development. And a lot of the people that have autism they actually have some type of mutation in this ADNP gene. So I hope the work that I do can somehow build onto the knowledge on what's known and can somehow contribute. So hopefully one day another way for us to target or treat autism. That's if I work with this target or whichever target that I work with. So the goal is to eventually start with the basic science knowledge and then we can build on that until we get to the clinical aspect of things. Thank you so much, Natalie. While we are coming up on our time and as much as I could sit here all day long and hear about our graduate students talking about the work that we're doing, I do wanna be respectful of the rest of all of your days. I would like to leave you with just one more thing that we have prepared just in honor of the incredible work that our students do with the help of such generous supporters. In an era marked by twists, turns and pivots Rackham students have shown incredible resilience. From altering their research and exploring new methods to coming together with their peers to meet the moment the perseverance of these rising scholars is unmatched. And with the support of an overwhelming community they continue their trajectories as top researchers and discovery makers. Thanks to you. Because in an era marked by twists, turns and pivots your support remained steadfast. In the midst of your own challenges you kept Rackham students and their futures in mind. From emergency grants to research funding your generosity and commitment mean the world to the University of Michigan. We applaud and thank you. Once again, thank you all so much for your continued support, your incredibly invaluable partnership especially over the last year and a half or so. Thank you so much for the robust discussion. I certainly hope you've all enjoyed hearing from these incredible scholars whose futures hold such great promise. And let's just give our students one more round of applause virtually if you wanna throw for reaction. And I just, again, thank you all so much for everything that you do to support graduate education at Michigan. You've heard about some of the great things you've got going on and we couldn't do it without your help. We serve thousands of graduate students here at U of M. And for many of us with us this afternoon we know how important such support was to your own journey. So again, we're deeply grateful. Thank you to our panelists for joining us today. And once again, thank you all and have a lovely Friday.