Our Stories
Our case studies, faculty profiles, and corporate engagement articles are shared here and in our monthly e-newsletters.
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SUCCESS STORIES
Corporate Partner Profile: Dave Harwood, DTE Energy
DTE Energy is one of U-M’s closest corporate partnerships. Our executive champion and alum, Dave Harwood, works tirelessly to build a deep, strong, mutually beneficial relationship with the university. And sometimes he comes to campus to join the band and teach a...
Ford Day @ U-M
Hundreds of students, dozens of Ford recruiters, and top leadership and engineers from the Ford Motor Company were on hand this week for the annual Ford Day on the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus.Events and activities were held at the College of...
What makes a good partnership? Key advice from Toyota’s executive champion at U-M.
U-M alum Jeff Makarewicz is passionate about U-M, helping students find their passion (hopefully in engineering), and how Toyota can live their values through U-M partnerships. We sat down with him recently to learn more about what makes a good industry partner, how...
Toyota inspires Wolverine Pathways interns
On a gorgeous Friday afternoon in the peak of Michigan vacation season, a group of high school students weren’t at the beach or at home playing video games, they were hard at work in a corporate conference room at Toyota Research & Development’s Ann Arbor...
Shared Priorities: Corporate Support for the Michigan Engineering Zone
Companies and campuses both recognize the need for a diverse talent pool in STEM fields, and the Michigan Engineering Zone (MEZ) is doing something about it. Leveraging industry mentors, funding partnerships, community engagement, and University of Michigan students,...
U-M funding helps precision dentistry startup GreenMark Biomedical make its mark
By Tess Postema Cavities are the great unifier. According to a comprehensive study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 90% of adults in the U.S. have or have had a cavity, while 1 in 4 has untreated cavities. What if there was a way to simultaneously...
It’s a Match: PNC Foundation and the Ginsberg Center
A matchmaking mechanism identifying connections between U-M resources and community needs gets funding from a like-minded organization to maximize local impact. Nonprofit organizations play an important role in helping to address a host of related challenges...
3D Modeling Representations, David Fouhey, TRI and a Cat
David Fouhey wants your computer to be as smart as your cat. He’s working pretty hard to make it happen, and he’s got a big group of U-M students on board in his Computer Vision class in the College of Engineering and some great research collaborations to help make...
Global CO2 Initiative Workshop spurs climate solutions with support from KPMG
One of the most critical strategies to fight climate change is to capture and remove carbon from the environment. Researchers at U-M are exploring various methods to do so and are identifying viable revenue generating opportunities as possible outcomes. The...
Language isn’t just business as usual at local startup realLINGUA
By Tess Postema From language professor to tech company founder If you’ve ever studied a foreign language, a persistent challenge quickly emerges: How to apply what you learn in the classroom - from conjugation exercises to endless vocabulary lists - to real-life...
U-M Students Mapping Ann Arbor Art
Every summer, the Ann Arbor Art Fairs draw artists and art aficionados from around the world to town. While this group descends upon and subsequently leaves town, still here after the crowds disperse is a vibrant and very visible art community in Ann Arbor. Students...
Pushing the limits of autonomous steering for extreme maneuvers
We don’t need to wait for fully autonomous vehicles to benefit from autonomous driving technologies. Life-saving technologies like this one will be preventing accidents in the future even in situations that require extreme maneuvering skills. You’re driving down the...
Etching a Partnership: IMRA America, U-M and A Nobel Prize Winner
Many at the University of Michigan were awaiting Nobel Prize winner Dr. Gerard Mourou’s lecture and reception when he returned to the school where he researched and taught for 18 years. Don Harter and Tak Omitsu, current and former staff at IMRA America, were no...
Glen DeVos on connecting with students, partnering with U-M, and a tech roadmap for the future
Glen DeVos (’83 MSE ME) serves as Senior Vice President, Chief Technology Officer and President of the Mobility and Services Group at Aptiv.He presented an automated driving tech talk to a packed room of U-M students recently. We took that opportunity to...
The Ford Motor Company Fund and U-M Ginsberg Center Partner for Intern and Community Support
Internships are a crucial component of a college student’s experience that provide opportunities to apply classroom learning in the real world. More internships than not go unpaid, making it hard for many students to participate, and putting those that don’t pursue...
Faculty Profile: Rebecca Cunningham wants to make the world safer for kids
Rebecca Cunningham is spearheading a research initiative to make the world a safer place for children. With $5 million in funding from the NIH, she’s undertaking the first firearm safety research in 30 years. A practicing emergency room physician and mother of five...
Polymer Polymath
By Tess Postema For Dr. John Nanos, the future is foaming with possibilities. Dr. Nanos is the owner, CEO, and formerly sole employee of Ann Arbor-based Nanosystems, Inc., a chemical company that develops specialty prepolymer materials used in a variety of consumer...
Accenture connects alumni and company giving to provide Wolverine Pathways room and board scholarships
Dean Brody goes blue. A proud U-M alum and an executive campus champion for the U-M/Accenture partnership, he keeps up with news and events at his alma mater, something made easier by his proximity working as a managing director at the Detroit-based offices of...
Toyota funds professorship in AI at U-Michigan
ANN ARBOR—A $3 million gift from Toyota Motor Corporation endows the first named professorship in artificial intelligence at the University of Michigan and provides additional funding to support AI and robotics faculty. The university’s Board of Regents has approved...
U-M professor’s artificial intelligence startup benefits from U-M grant to assist small Michigan businesses
by Tess Postema In a small, brick-walled office above Arbor Brewing Company, Dr. Jason Corso is quietly at work, converting oceans of raw video into useful metadata -- insights that could help prevent a car from hitting a cyclist in its blind spot, or identify the...
Ross Program Prepares Students for Careers of Tomorrow
Companies are continually looking for creative ways to engage top college students and find resources to solve problems that constrain their business. At the same time, there is a concerted emphasis by schools and colleges to provide students with an opportunity for...
NEWS
APPLE/U-M HEARING STUDY TO FOCUS ON SOUND EXPOSURE IN DAILY LIFE
Contact: Nardy Baeza Bickel, 734-763-0368, nbbickel@umich.edu ANN ARBOR—Noise exposure has often been associated with occupational activities that lead to hearing loss: the banging noises at construction sites, airplanes lifting off at airports, loud machines in...
New $300 million U-M research and education center to anchor 14-acre Detroit Center for Innovation in the heart of Detroit
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and Wayne County Executive Warren Evans joined together with Stephen M. Ross, philanthropist and chairman of Related Companies, Matt Cullen, CEO of Bedrock and University of Michigan President Mark...
U-M Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and Guardian Industries announce research partnership
October 29, 2019 Ann Arbor, MI The University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and Guardian Industries announce a new collaborative research partnership in advanced glass materials. An award from Guardian will result in two...
How does industry inform academia, and vice versa? George Halow shares his vision.
For decades, George Halow worked closely with the University of Michigan to recruit the leaders and best for Ford Motor Company. Now he is a faculty member of practice in the College of Engineering to teach students what he’s learned. Q: Can you speak to your...
U-M researcher partners with Apple to study how noise exposure impacts hearing
Sept. 10, 2019 Contact: Morgan Sherburne, 734-647-1844, morganls@umich.edu ANN ARBOR—A University of Michigan researcher is partnering with Apple to learn how noise exposure impacts hearing. The Apple Hearing Study will be available to participate in through a new...
Staff Profile: Amy Bellas on staying positive, the BEC team, and cleaning up Superfund sites
Amy boomeranged back to the University of Michigan after years in industry in environmental engineering. Her familiarity with the inner workings of the corporate world, including running her own business with her fiance, combined with her deep knowledge of the...
Spotlight on Kelly Sexton
Sexton on the changing landscape of technology commercialization, attracting VCs to the Midwest, and what's next for the business environment at U-M. When it was announced that Kelly Sexton would be joining the University of Michigan as Associate Vice President -...
University of Michigan Credit Union is biggest supporter of U-M Hardship Fund
As the largest contributor to the University of Michigan's Emergency Hardship Program, the University of Michigan Credit Union demonstrates their commitment to support financial education, workshops and support for members of the university community. Read more......
Volker Sick is installed as the DTE Energy Professor of Advanced Energy Research
In a recent ceremony, Professor Volker Sick was installed as the DTE Energy Professor of Advanced Energy Research at the University of Michigan. The DTE Energy Professorship of Advanced Energy Research was established in September 2007 with a $2 million endowment...
The Greening of Gatorade
Inefficiencies in the Gatorade processing lines provided a great target for PepsiCo’s sustainability efforts. A Tauber team dug into the data, modified the process, and coordinated with multiple units to help PepsiCo slash absolute GHG emissions and water usage...
University pilots new partnership for electric scooters on campus
May 3, 2019 By Hanna Quinlan Public Affairs A one-year pilot agreement with Spin, a company owned by Ford Motor Co., has deployed 200 electric scooters throughout campus and surrounding neighborhoods. The pilot involving the University of Michigan, city of Ann Arbor...
UM Engineering Students Take Wraps Off 2019 MRacing Car at PDC
“These students had a full load of classes, and during peak times the team spent nearly 40 hours a week working on the car,” said George Halow, Ford executive champion, UM student vehicle teams. “It’s a real commitment and a labor of love that gets them to this...
New resource for industry: Key Research Initiatives at U-M
We have daily conversations with companies around a myriad of programs, projects and faculty at the University of Michigan every day. What we find is those conversations often involve a handful of primary U-M areas of expertise that are particularly relevant for the...
Staff Profile: Sheila Waterhouse asks a lot of questions
Our staff are central to the mission of the Business Engagement Center. As a means to get to know us and what makes us tick, our staff profile series is designed to offer insight into our team. Next in the series is Sheila Waterhouse, the communications and marketing...
U-M student wins prestigious Ford Alan Mulally Scholarship in Engineering
Anthony Zheng is one of ten nationwide recipients of the prestigious Ford Alan Mulally Scholarship in Engineering. The scholarship program awards 10 one-time $10,000 scholarships each year to outstanding sophomore or junior engineering students at leading universities...
Michigan Research Cores offers a new, searchable resource database
The University of Michigan’s Biosciences Initiative and Medical School Office of Research have partnered to create a powerful, searchable database with information on research cores across campus. The university is full of rich core resources, but they are often...
Cryptocurrency innovation: U-M to establish FinTech Collaboratory
ANN ARBOR—Financial technology research and education at the University of Michigan will get a boost with $1 million from Ripple's University Blockchain Research Initiative. The funding to U-M—one of 11 universities with new partnerships with Ripple—will support...
Welcome Amy Bellas to the BEC!
The Business Engagement Center is pleased to welcome Amy Bellas to our team and back to the University of Michigan. Amy's 20 years of industry and university experience will help her to facilitate relationships between corporations and faculty. She is responsible for...
Nick Miller on changes in corporate relations and juggling projects and baseballs
The BEC’s Nick Miller was employee #1 when we were created eleven years ago. As a foundational member of the team, he has shaped the BEC and evolved his role at the same time, growing from three employees to 13 and shifting from the center’s marketing manager to a...
Aptiv supports multiple student organizations with $40,000 gift
On campus last week, Aptiv representatives brought a check for their 2018 gift to support U-M students at the annual Scholarship Fellowship Luncheon. Aptiv's gift supports a variety of teams and student organizations as well as the College of Engineering's Career...
LSA’s Thomas Baird named next vice president for development
Thomas A. Baird, a longtime University of Michigan fundraiser, has been named the university’s next vice president for development. His appointment was approved Thursday by the Board of Regents. Baird, a U-M graduate and resident of Ann Arbor, has spent the last three...