#michiganstudents

[globalmichigan-blog]

Finding connection between engineering and dance

By JOSIE TOLIN

ANN ARBOR—When University of Michigan student Jac Bowman, attended her first zouk congress, she immediately fell in love with the culture of Brazilian zouk—a style of dance with a heavy focus on the axes of movement.

"Generally, they all flow together," said Bowman, who went on to start her own zouk dance community at U-M. "There's a big emphasis on connection with a dance partner, so the dance itself is cohesive, too."

The different genres of zouk range from hip-hop to meditation, Latina flare to slow motion.

Before she began zouk, Bowman was a frequent salsa dancer. One of her salsa partners introduced her to zouk, and she immediately gravitated towards it.

"My mom works for an airline, so I can fly for free," she said.

Bowman used it to attend zouk congresses around the world, flying to Canada, the Netherlands, London, Mexico and the Czech Republic to train and learn about zouk. She even received a grant from optiMize to do some training in Brazil.

A zouk congress is where people from the worldwide zouk community congregate to dance together. Famous dancers teach workshops, and the dancing usually lasts until seven or eight in the morning.

"Professionals will dance with beginners at the congresses, which is different from other types of dancing, where there's more of a sense of expertise among the top dancers," said Bowman. "The zouk community doesn't care. We welcome everyone, and we're very open."

This same sense of openness and community is exactly what Bowman has tried to replicate in her zouk organization on campus. She and former dance student Sydney Schiff founded the group shortly after Bowman's first congress in Canada. The dance community holds classes at Open Floor on Thursdays and Sundays, as well as regular dance socials.

For Bowman, the drive to start a zouk community in Ann Arbor comes from so much more than the fun of the dance.

"At zouk events, people sometimes do workshops about insecurities, trust, or connecting with people," she said. "There's a lot more to zouk than just dance—it's like therapy."

After she finishes her master's program in biomedical engineering, Bowman hopes to stay in Ann Arbor for a few years to continue to grow the zouk community. Then, she'll matriculate to medical school.

"With my scientific background, it's cool to understand the body mechanics of it all," she said. "Zouk is very natural. If you looked at it logistically, I feel like you could do a science project on it."

[globalmichigan-blog]

Forging his path in education

BY JOSIE TOLIN

ANN ARBOR -- When PhD candidate Minh Huynh graduated from Dalat University in Vietnam, he earned an assistantship with the education faculty at his alma mater. It was then that he began to research academic accessibility in ethnic minority communities.

“I still remember the day I decided I wanted to go into international education policy,” said Huynh, a student in the School of Education. “I visited a classroom with blackboards at opposite ends of the room, where two classes were in session at the same time—fifth grade math on one side, third grade Vietnamese on the other.”

After he saw the educational gap in Vietnam, Huynh became committed to bridging this academic disparity.

“It’s not fair that the national test in Vietnam is the same for everyone. Students in underserved communities face resource deficits, so it’s difficult for them to perform the same as other groups of students with better facilities.”

This past year, Huynh had the opportunity to take his passion for international education policy to Paris, where he studied at the International Institute for Education Planning, run by UNESCO for six months.

“In Paris, I studied UNESCO as a whole, including its approach to equity in the education system,” Huynh explained. “I also studied how the organization works to promote the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for education—an agreement forged by more than 150 countries.”

Since the University doesn't have a formal degree program for international and comparative education, Huynh designed his own. With the help of his advisor, he created the curriculum and independent study opportunities for his PhD.

“One thing I appreciate about Michigan, and the School of Education in particular, is the flexibility we have in our studies. One can easily take your studies in a unique direction because of the awesome support we have here.”

[globalmichigan-blog]

U-M’s Marshall scholar

BY JOSIE TOLIN

ANN ARBOR -- When Amanda Burcroff was a freshman, she stumbled across an invitation to a University dinner honoring Marshall and Rhodes Scholarship nominees. There, she met a fellow Michigan mathematics student who was in the running for the scholarship.

“It made me realize that this was something I should keep on my radar,” said Burcroff, who’s also a computer science minor.

Now an LSA senior, she’s one of two recipients of this year’s Marshall Scholarship. The scholarship funded by the British government, allows upvto 40 American students to study at British universities every year.

“I’ll be at Cambridge during the first year, so I’m very excited,” said Burcroff who will also pursue another master’s degree in mathematics and computer science at the University of Oxford during her second year.

Burcroff and Noah McNeal, a senior in LSA physics, are U-M’s 8th and 9th Marshall fellows, first students since 2013. Burcroff notes that she has something in common with five of the University’s six Marshall scholarship recipients since 1997—ties to the math department.

“The Marshall Scholarship is for any field. With so many Michigan math students in the list, It’s clear that something positive is happening in our math department,” she said.

Burcroff’s interest in pursuing a master’s degree abroad arose when she studied in Hungary, her first summer at U-M. There, she was exposed to combinatorics, a subfield of math which soon became her specialty. She describes combinatorics as the mathematics of counting.

“When I went to Hungary, I wasn't even planning on taking any combinatorics courses, because I didn't realize they were such a big hub for this specific subfield of math. I sat in on some combinatorics classes on a whim, and was fascinated.”

This mathematician decided to immerse herself in combinatorics research, returning to Budapest during her junior year to take specialty courses in the subfield.

“These courses aren’t offered in many other places,” Burcroff explained. “Half of the combinatorialists in the Cambridge math department are Hungarian.”

“I can't wait to meet all these people whose names I’ve read in papers and whose results I have seen cited in my classes.”

[globalmichigan-blog]

Bringing educational resources to refugee children

BY JOSIE TOLIN

ANN ARBOR -- During her junior year of high school, Brooke Bacigal joined Model United Nations on a whim. Four years later, this advocate for international human rights credits that experience for sparking her true passion.

“At first, it was a way to spend time with friends,” said Bacigal, a Ford School junior with a major in public policy and a minor in English. “I loved the engagement, the topics and how everyone interacted with each other. It was all about identifying problems and working to solve them, which I think is really salient, especially now.”

Bacigal is still highly involved in Model UN at the university level. Leveraging her knowledge of foreign policy into sustainable, global impact, she and her friend, Ayah Kutmah, founded a student organization called Refugee Education Initiative. [RE]vive is working to help school-age Syrian refugees in Istanbul, Turkey by helping them access academic resources.

“Less than one percent of refugees’ graduate college,” she explained. “If refugees don’t have opportunities to improve their social situations, it makes everything that much more difficult.”

[RE]vive’s understood the problem many refugee children face. Many refugee children have been forced to miss crucial years of schooling due to conflict and are not well represented in higher education either. The student organization partnered with a nonprofit in Turkey - Karam Foundation. The foundation provides academic assistance to school-age Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan, and the United States.

“We talked to NGOs in Istanbul to gauge what refugee students might want assistance with,” Bacigal said. “Similar to what American students might say, they wanted to know how to write a resume, use GoogleDocs, and email someone for scholarship help.”

This past August, the [RE]vive cohort facilitated academic workshops in Istanbul. The first of the two-part workshop series was focused on professional development for Syrian refugees, while the second was designed to empower community teachers to perpetuate the workshop.

“We were there for two-and-a-half weeks,” said Bacigal, who helped develop the workshop content and design. “I’m currently learning Arabic so I can directly assist with workshop facilitation the next time around.”

For this year, the organization is hoping to expand to new sites in the U.S. to work with resettled refugee students.

Bacigal is thankful for optiMize, the campus organization whose funding and guidance was crucial to [RE]vive’s development.

“They’re amazing,” she said. “If you have an idea for social innovation or have a problem you want to address, they will help you every step of the way.”

[globalmichigan-blog]

Lessons from study abroad

BY JOSIE TOLIN

ANN ARBOR -- Kiki Ogu’s interest in practicing medicine began at a young age. Her first exposure to obstetrics and gynecology was through A Baby Story, a television series on The Learning Channel that documented conception to delivery in every episode. Now a fourth-year medical student, Ogu still remembers the first time she watched the show.

“I was completely in awe of the role of the physician in the delivery room,” Ogu recalled. “That was in third grade. When I posted that I was specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, my friends from elementary school said, you’ve been talking about this your entire life!”

Since third grade, Ogu has found various opportunities to help her to achieve her dream as an obstetrician-gynecologist physician. One of those opportunities took place during the summer at Komfo Anoyke Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, Ghana.

“I learned a lot during my time there and was able to be of real service to the community,” Ogu said.

In the hospital, Ogu rotated through the hospital’s family planning clinic, outpatient clinic, and operating room, but found herself drawn to the labor and delivery ward. Apart from clinical duties, Ogu found time to work on a research project about women’s contraceptive choice.

“The goal of the research project was to empower women to have more knowledge about their contraceptive options prior to the actual physician’s appointment,” she explained.

Ogu also noted cultural differences in the way medicine is practiced in the US and Ghana. The most noticeable difference for her was that women didn't scream during childbirth, even though they hadn’t received epidurals.

“People were clapping and snapping and maybe saying some prayers. But overall, it was very quiet, which is so different from what you see in the hospital here,” said Ogu.

A first-generation American and daughter of Nigerian parents, Ogu originally considered working in Nigeria to widen her global perspective on obstetrics. But U-M’s strong connection in Kumasi led her to choose Ghana instead.

“I hope to work with a diverse patient population in the future. My experience in Ghana led to a greater understanding about how to honor those cultural differences,” she said. “The lessons I learned will help me become a more well-rounded physician.”

[globalmichigan-blog]

Giving flight to childhood dreams

BY JOSIE TOLIN

ANN ARBOR— Abhinav Sharma’s fascination with planes began during his childhood in Cameroon. The son of Indian parents, this aerospace engineering student grew up in a family on the move, frequently traveling back and forth between Cameroon and India to visit extended family.

More than a decade later, Sharma would arrive at University of Michigan to fulfill this dream. After completing an undergraduate and a master’s degree, he is now a PhD candidate in aerospace engineering. His path to academic and professional success has continued to be reinforced by the first witnesses of his childhood affinity for machines—his family.

“My older brother, Tejasvi, is also an engineer,” Sharma explained. “His specialty is energy biomass. Since we both have roots in Cameroon, we decided to collaborate on a project to see how a solar cooker would be beneficial in a remote area.”

This time, the brothers would board a plane with a shared mission. They wanted to bring an alternative energy source to a village called Sagba, near Cameroon’s western border.

“Sunlight is the primary energy source for rural Cameroonian villages like Sagba. My brother and I are from the capital city, Yaoundé, and we’d never been to the western side of the country before.”

Though Sharma identifies as the “clown of the house,” the project allowed the brothers to view each other in a more professional light. Since solar cooker installation was more within the realm of Tejasvi’s specialty, Sharma helped out where he could, inspired by his older brother’s passion and enthusiasm.

“As siblings, we have had our little differences, but I was so excited to see Tejasvi’s initiative throughout the course of the project,” said Sharma.

After a successful completion of the project in Sagba, Sharma is thinking about introducing aerospace engineering in Cameroon in a meaningful way. He wants to launch a series of educational seminars and hands-on workshops to encourage more Cameroonians to get into the field.

“I really want to help demystify the way machines like aircrafts and helicopters work,” said Sharma. “In Cameroon, part of the reason a lot of people might not want to go into engineering is a lack of education on how machines function, which makes the field itself very intimidating.”

In addition to his research about environmental influences on helicopter velocity, Sharma is a founding member of Graduate Rackham International. GRIN is dedicated to addressing everyday issues faced by campus international students.

“Just the sheer support and availability of resources on our campus is amazing. I love it here!”

[globalmichigan-blog]

Helping Puerto Rico: A U-M student’s journey

BY JOSIE TOLIN

ANN ARBOR— Ten months after Hurricane Maria struck the island of Puerto Rico, Amilcar Matos-Moreno, a student from U-M School of Public Health met an elderly couple who’d been living in a makeshift house since the storm ravaged their home.

“They lived in a very rural part of the island,” Matos-Moreno explained. “My team and I had donated and installed pieces of a roof, a door, kitchen tools, and a communal water filter for the town.”

At first, Matos-Moreno had no idea about the impact of Hurricane Maria, last year’s category five storm that devastated the island he calls home. It wasn’t until a couple weeks after the natural disaster that he realized it was worse than he could have predicted.

“I’ve spent most of my life in Puerto Rico, so I’ve lived through quite a few hurricanes,” said the third-year doctoral candidate in SPH. “I never thought this hurricane would devastate the island the way it did.”

It was then that he and his wife, Yabetza Vivas, decided to get to work.

“We made calls and encouraged friends to get involved with us,” he said. “We started a GoFundMe to cover equipment and travel costs, and we ended up raising over $5000.”

And so began Matos-Moreno’s first Hurricane Maria disaster relief mission which took place of Thanksgiving break last year. He and his team delivered over 500 meals to people in need. Two more relief projects followed—one over spring break, another during the summer.

“In March, we joined a mission trip where the goal was to install tarps for those still lacking roofs over their heads. This summer, we worked at a summer camp for older adults where we discussed hurricane season preparation.”

The summer project was funded by SPH’s Public Health and Assistance Support Team, a program that helped Matos-Moreno find five U-M students with the proper skillset and Spanish fluency for the job. His project leadership skills, he said, are a product of his experience in the US Army Reserve.

His specialty in social epidemiology has informed Matos-Moreno’s understanding of disease in the context of human populations. At the summer program in Puerto Rico, his knowledge of epidemiology helped him with interviews and data collection on disaster recovery in older adult populations.

“As an epidemiologist, we don’t often get a chance to collect data with these situations,” said Matos-Moreno. “We used what we learned to teach older adults how to adapt to new housing situations after the disaster.”

After he finishes his PhD, Matos-Moreno plans to move back to Puerto Rico to find work as a professor. He explained there is a mass migration of young professionals leaving the island, an issue he works passionately to combat.

“With the hurricane, this issue is only getting worse,” he said. “But I always urge Puerto Ricans I know here to go back.”

[globalmichigan-blog]

The science of dance

BY JOSIE TOLIN

ANN ARBOR— To most people, physics and dance have nothing in common. For doctoral student Shruti Paranjape, they’re really not so different.

“It’s a similar process,” said Paranjape, who will dance in the upcoming Indian festival in Ann Arbor - Rasa Festival. “Instead of working with equations, you’re working with your body. You’re exploring choreographic options to find which movements look good.”

She will be performing a style of Indian dance called Odissi, which she learned about a year and a half ago. It was not the dance she grew learning. “I learned Bharatanatyam growing up and the training from there really helped me accelerate my learning of Odissi.”

Since third grade, dance has been a central part of Paranjape’s life. It gives her a healthy, creative outlet, something she finds especially necessary as a physics doctoral candidate.

“It’s nice to have something that keeps you active and happy,” said Paranjape. “It’d be impossible to get through graduate school without it.”

Paranjape has been practicing for the Rasa Festival since March along with four other dancers. She has spent part of every day for the past several weeks in the dance studio of her teacher learning the movements for the upcoming performance.

 “It’s an original 40-minute piece where we take verses from the Vedas, ancient Indian texts, and bring them to life.  The dance portrays the five elements—earth, water, fire, space, and air,”.  she said. “With each element, the movements change – water is more fluid, whereas fire is more dangerous.”

“The Rasa Festival has different kinds of events - poetry, music, art, dance, so there’s something for everyone,” she said. “It’s different, it’s interesting, and we’ve all been working very hard to prepare!”