EMU Today

YPSILANTI – Eastern Michigan University’s Brickley Endowment award recipients are helping to develop solutions to real-world issues, such as treatment relapse of severe destructive behavior in children, virtual reality content development for health care education, and identifying the distinct needs of adolescent and young adult cancer survivors.

Tony and Lois Evans established the James H. Brickley Endowment for Faculty Professional Development and Innovation awards in 2016. The purpose is to facilitate faculty professional development and innovation through a broad range of activities, including research and scholarly/creative work, curriculum development, community service, professional travel and training. 

Lois Evans is a retired mathematics teacher. Tony Evans served in several administrative positions at Eastern from 1975 to 1982, including executive vice president, interim president, and provost and vice president for academic affairs. He worked with former President James H. Brickley from 1974–1978, for whom the endowment is named. 

The 2022 award cycle funded nine projects totaling $71,909. Eleven faculty will be supported, representing five colleges: five faculty members from the College of Arts and Sciences, three faculty members from the College of Health and Human Services, one faculty member from the College of Education, one faculty member from the College of Engineering and Technology, and one faculty member from the College of Business.

Eastern Michigan University’s EMU’s Board of Regents approved the awards at its regular meeting on Dec. 8. The award winners, topics and award totals are listed below in alphabetical order:

• Adam Briggs, Department of Psychology (College of Arts and Sciences). “Developing an Innovative Translational Research Laboratory to Study an Analog of Treatment Relapse of Severe Destructive Behavior in Children with Autism in a Safe and Ethical Manner.” $2,950. 

  • Adam Briggs seeks to investigate the variables influencing treatment relapse in children with autism and evaluate the influence of prevention and mitigation techniques using a computer task with college students. Treatment relapse can cause both safety and ethical repercussions in a clinical setting. Funding will support the required hardware and software to startup an innovative translational laboratory on EMUʼs main campus, hire an expert programmer to modify the existing software, and train people within the EMU community to use and modify the software. He not only plans to grow personally from this experience but also hopes to involve EMU undergraduate and graduate students in the experience of the great professional development opportunities this research introduces.

• Ovidiu Calin, Department of Mathematics & Statistics (College of Arts and Sciences). “Machine Learning Tools for Interpreting DART Mass Spectroscopy Data.” $5,826. 

  • Ovidiu Calin will use his Brickley award to expand the efficiency and effectiveness of the AccuTOF-DART mass spectrometer that the EMU Chemistry Department acquired over a decade ago. His goal is to develop a computer software tool that will take the data that the machine produces and make it easier to process and analyze the information. The software will benefit chemistry researchers who use a mass spectrometer to collect DART data and is envisioned to support collaboration with others who employ large data sets in physics, biology, geology and the GameAbove College of Engineering and Technology. Calin also looks forward to disseminating the software and its success at the annual Machine Learning Conference at EMU in April 2023.

• Audrey Farrugia, Department of Special Education and Communication Sciences and Disorders (College of Education). “Adding Certified Lactation Counseling to Speech-Language Pathology: Lactation Counseling for Exceptional Families.” $3,505. 

  • Audrey Farrugia is passionate about growing the speech-language pathology field and helping shape EMU's Communication Sciences and Disorders program. Farrugia strives to do this by implementing lactation consulting knowledge and instruction for students. The funding will cover the tuition cost for Farrugia to become certified for leading lactation counseling classes and the ability to bring the information to EMU students and other faculty. Farrugia's long-term goal is for lactation counseling knowledge to be added to courses in EMU’s Communication Sciences and Disorders program and to add lactation counseling services to the EMU Speech and Hearing clinic. This research will benefit the students in the program, faculty and community members who will be able to use these services.

• Frank Fedel, School of Health Promotion and Human Performance (College of Health & Human Services). “Innovative Virtual Reality Content Development for Healthcare Education.” $9,800. 

  • The use of virtual reality in the classroom is becoming an expectation for several areas in higher education. Frank Fedel recognizes the opportunity that virtual reality presents in health care education. Virtual reality would allow students to view different anatomical structures in new ways and promote a new level of learning. 

Due to the nature of this project, it can also benefit other programs at Eastern, such as the physician assistant program, the Bachelor of Science in nursing, and a graduate certificate in Teaching in Health Care Systems, including occupational therapy and exercise science, among several others. 

The dedicated funding would support the research assistants assigned to the project, the virtual reality template application and equipment, the purchase of in-application assets, and travel costs for Fedel to present his work at the National Association for Kinesiology in Higher Education Conference in January. 

• Sheila Longpré, School of Health Sciences (College of Health & Human Services). “Identifying the Distinct Needs of Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors.” $12,000. 

  • Sheila Longpré strives to gather a better understanding of what adolescent and young adult cancer survivors need physically, psychologically and occupationally. Longpré plans to do this by recruiting subjects to help her collect both quantitative and qualitative data. The research project's long-term goal is to develop a digital resource to support the population with their needs. This award will provide funding to hire student research assistants and partially cover travel costs for Longpré to present her research at the American Occupational Therapy Association Annual Conference in April 2023. In addition, Longpré will collaborate with three additional occupational therapy clinicians from the United States.

• Tsai-Shan Shen, School of Communication, Media and Theatre Arts (College of Arts and Sciences). “Clearing Fog of Love: How Attachment Styles Affect Relational Behaviors.” $6,000. 

  • Tsai-Shan Shen hopes to fill the gap in research regarding how attachment styles predict relational behaviors. He plans to go beyond current research that mainly involves self-report surveys to use priming techniques and observe the effects of the priming techniques with participants while they play the board game “Fog of Love.” To do this, Shen will need funding for moderator time compensation, audio transcription costs, and participation incentives, which are already covered by other awards Shen has won. In addition, the Brickley award will cover another large portion of the required funding for this project. Finally, his research will benefit the field by providing more information regarding attachment styles and the EMU community by involving students in research opportunities. 

• Rebecca Spragg, School of Health Promotion and Human Performance (College of Health and Human Services). “Identifying Workplace Hazards, Accommodations and Pregnancy Complications in Orthotic and Prosthetic Employees.” $6,300. 

  • There is a significant gap in research regarding pregnancy concerns in orthotics and prosthetics workplaces. This research project aims to examine pregnancy loss within the field of orthotics and prosthetics and to compare it to national rates, determine the current knowledge of employees of pregnancy-related workplace hazards that are present, and identify workplace accommodations previously made by pregnant employees. Funding for this project granted by the Brickley Endowment will help cover data analysis software, the cost to hire a statistician, and travel expenses for both Rebecca Spragg and a graduate student to present this research to a national audience. 

• Chuyang Yang, School of Technology and Professional Services Management (GameAbove College of Engineering and Technology). “Leverage NextGen Technologies to Estimate Aircraft Operations near EMU Community.” $4,450. 

  • Not all airports in the United States currently know precisely what aircraft operations are occurring at their airport. Chuyang Yang recognizes that changes need to be made to ensure the safety of pilots, better estimate the environmental impacts on the communities surrounding airports and enhance the planning and management of airports. Yang plans to develop a data collection and sharing system to record the majority of EMU studentsʼ flight training activities, publish results that leverage NextGen Technologies and artificial intelligence to estimate aircraft operations and establish a research proposal to study further how artificial intelligence algorithms are used to improve aircraft operations classification. The funding allocated to this project will cover the required equipment, field implementations, access to literature and reports and travel costs. 

• Jodonnis Rodriguez (left), Department of Accounting, Finance, and Information Systems (College of Business).

• Amanda Stype (middle), Department of Economics (College of Arts and Sciences)

• Melissa Jones (right), Department of English Language and Literature and Department of Women’s and Gender Studies (College of Arts and Sciences). 

  • “The EMU Financial Empowerment and Equity Center.” $21,078. 

  • This team of three faculty members from EMU is passionate about addressing the financial hardship students face that sometimes causes students to stop out. This project will develop a Financial Empowerment and Equity Center on EMUʼs campus to support students in completing their degrees at EMU despite potential financial difficulties. First, this team hopes to reach out to 121 student stop-outs who will be their focus for data collection. This center hopes to become a more permanent establishment on campus to continue this research and possibly aid students. Funding granted to this project from the Brickley Endowment will help cover the time and efforts of the research team and travel costs for conferences and training for the team to step outside of their academic disciplinary areas of expertise to make the center as effective as possible in helping EMU students. This project will benefit the students, faculty, staff, and administrators of EMU by providing resources to the EMU community for financial issues that negatively impact specific populations more than others.

About Eastern Michigan University
Founded in 1849, Eastern is the second oldest public university in Michigan. It currently serves more than 14,000 students pursuing undergraduate, graduate, specialist, doctoral and certificate degrees in the arts, sciences and professions. In all, more than 300 majors, minors and concentrations are delivered through the University's Colleges of Arts and Sciences; Business; Education; Engineering and Technology; Health and Human Services; and its graduate school. National publications regularly recognize EMU for its excellence, diversity, and commitment to applied education. Visit the University’s rankings and points of pride websites to learn more. For more information about Eastern Michigan University, visit the University's website. To stay up to date on University news, activities and announcements, visit EMU Today.