List of previous innovations
If you notice any updates that need to be made to the table below, please let us know at madisontrust@jmu.edu.
The table below is best viewed at horizontal orientation on your device.
| Project | College(s) | Department(s) | Project Summary | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The 21st Century Federalist Papers Project (Tim LaPira) | CAL | Political Science |
JMU APRILab students Produce public-facing digital “explainer” campaigns – the modern equivalent of Madison’s 18th Century Federalist Papers – to raise public awareness of innovative nonpartisan solutions to significant, real-world democratic problems. |
2023 |
| JMU ArtsMobile (Benjamin Guerrero, Anna Smith) | CVPA | Office of Creative Propulsion |
Help communities throughout (and beyond) the Shenandoah Valley engage with JMU’s exemplary arts and design programs in ways local communities find meaningful. |
2023 |
| Your Address Shouldn't Limit Your Opportunities: STEM for All (Kerry Cresawn) | CISE | Center for STEM Education and Outreach |
JMU STEM Center to expand after school program to provide weekly, year-long, and high-impact STEM experiences to 450 children each year. |
2023 |
| Establishing the Open-Source Tradecraft Exploratory Lab (OSTEL) (Philip Baxter) | CISE | Intelligence Anaylsis |
Provide students with resources, training, and active learning opportunities in open source intelligence and its collection to identify and leverage a broad array of real world problem set data. |
2023 |
| Radio Show about the Local Environment (Tim Thomas, Ryan Alessi) | COE | Educational Foundations and Exceptionalities |
"Shenandoah Valley Ever Green" is an hour-long radio program that spearheads environmental education efforts in the Valley. |
2023 |
| Think Outside the Trash! (Marigona Gashi) | CAL | Communication and Advocacy (SCOM) | Teach children in Kosovo about their agency in shaping the environmental future of their country. | 2023 |
| Strive for STEM (Parama Chaudhuri, Andrew Jackson) | COE | Educational Foundations and Exceptionalities |
Bring together practicing STEM teachers at the 5th and 6th grade level with pre-service teachers and STEM majors at JMU. |
2023 |
| Digital Interventions to Mitigate Misinformation on Social Media (Chen Guo, Nan Zheng, Chengqi Guo) | CAL | Media Arts & Design | Design and test warning mechanisms to improve misinformation mitigation solutions to help social media users with low media literacy. | 2023 |
| Launching a Space Biology Research Program at JMU (Jaira Ferreira de Vasconcellos) | CSM | Biology | Launch and establish a novel space biology research program at JMU focusing on bone biology. | 2023 |
| Teachers Debate Institute (Nelson Girinshuti) | Office of the President | Office of the President | Train teachers to coach debate and create the right environment for building democratic ideas and values among Rwandan students. | 2023 |
| Appropriate Technology in Rural Health Innovation (Modjadji Choshi) | CHBS | Nursing | Development of a culturally integrated educational program for rural South African villages addressing common health concerns related to Western societal influences. | 2022 |
| Be Seen, Be Heard (Cannie Campbell) | University Advancement | Women for Madison | Development of a series of podcasts addressing everyday challenges and issues featuring JMU alumni and friends. | 2022 |
| Chronic Cough Suppression Therapy Device (Keith Holland) | Research & Scholarship | Further development of wearable technology designed to suppress chronic cough issues. | 2022 | |
| Constructs of Local Knowledge (Nicholas Brinen) | CVPA | Architectural Design | Collaborating with State Forestry and Public Works to repurpose otherwise discarded lumber into meaningful public projects. | 2022 |
| CPR Music (Michael Stewart) | CISE/CVPA | Computer Science & Music | Development of a free web-based music making and learning interface for K-12 students. | 2022 |
| Expanding the Living Laboratory on East Campus (Wayne Teel) | CISE | Integrated Sciences | Expansion of the meadow and improvements to the food forest, pollinator beds and handicapped access in the outdoor laboratory area. | 2022 |
| FYRE: First Year and Transfer Student Research Experience Program (Meredith Malburne-Wade) | Research & Scholarship | Identifying mentored research opportunities for underserved students, specifically first year undergraduates and transfer students. | 2022 | |
| JMU Veteran and Military Student Center (JMU VALOR) (Tim Miller) | Student Affairs | Improving JMU support systems and recognition for Veteran, Dependent and Active Military students. | 2022 | |
| Virtual Reality Video Game for Vestibular Rehabilitation Therapy (VG-VRT) (Jonathan Spindel) | CISE | Integrated Sciences | Development of a virtual reality interface to assist patients with balance issues in completing rehabilitation exercises. | 2022 |
| Writing for the Future (Carol Fleming) | School of Professional & Continuing Education | Mentoring immigrant & refugee high school students in professional writing and job search skills. | 2022 | |
| Africa Supply Chain (William Ritchie) | COB | Business | Warehousing and shipping of durable medical equipment to African nations where it can be repurposed. | 2021 |
| BizLab Phase 2 (Abigail Christophel) | COB | Business, Computer Information Systems | Having laid out consistent project processes, the next phase of growth is effectively refining those processes with an end goal of becoming fully self-sustaining. | 2021 |
| Call the Midwife (Heather Soper) | CHBS | Nursing | In home collaborative mid-wife care for local patients utilizing School of Nursing students. | 2021 |
| Collaborative Pedagogies (Emily York) | CISE | ISAT | Support for a series of small workshops with faculty participants from humanities, social sciences, science, and engineering, to collaboratively develop mutually informed teaching modules oriented toward imagining and building more just futures at the intersection of science, technology, and society (STS). | 2021 |
| Global Learning (Felix Wang) | Center for Global Engagement | The Center for Global Engagement (CGE) at JMU is tasked with helping students develop capacities they need to enter the workplace and society and to successfully collaborate with people from a wide array of backgrounds and experiences. | 2021 | |
| Madison Community Consultants (Nicholas Swartz) | Professional & Continuing Education | Assist with business process realignments to align with the challenges presented by the COVID pandemic business restrictions. | 2021 | |
| MeshSAT (Jonathan Spindel) | CISE | ISAT | Development and deployment of a low orbit network of satellites more affordable for small business use. | 2021 |
| Precious Plastics (Jared Stoltzfus) | CISE | ISAT |
Since the primary barrier to plastic recycling is the higher cost relative to virgin materials, to increase plastic recycling requires approaches that minimize production costs, and can use plastics without significant sorting and cleaning which adds cost to recycling. This project explores innovative solutions to plastic recycling.
|
2021 |
| Trash to Treasure: Part 2 (Jared Stoltzfus) | CISE | ISAT | Recycling and repurposing of styrofoam into a lightweight and lower cost building material. | 2021 |
| Wellness 360 (Sharon Maiewski) | CHBS | Nursing | Offering holistic health solutions for the homeless using School of Nursing students. | 2021 |
| Animal Monitoring (Katrina Goebetz) | CSM | Biology | The Animal Monitoring Data Station is an innovation to reduce overhead and risk during the collection of data on small mammals. | 2020 |
| Beyond the Valley (Katie Sensabaugh) | Center for Global Engagement | The Valley Scholars program was designed to provide educational opportunities that inspire and motivate area high school students to be leaders in the classroom and community. At the Center for Global Engagement (CGE), we want to take that a step further by producing leaders not just in the classroom and the community, but in the world. | 2020 | |
| Broadband Radio Wave (Giovanna Scarel) | CSM | Physics & Astronomy | This Project's aim is to build the prototype for a radio wave energy harvester, capable of capturing radio waves in the 100 MHz to 1 GHz frequency range. The radio wave energy harvester will transform that energy into electricity. | 2020 |
| Gus Bus (Jolynne Bartley) | CHBS |
The Gus Bus mobile classroom program seeks funding to purchase 25 iPads for elementary-aged students to use while on the Gus Bus.
|
2020 | |
| Healthy Families (Yvonne Frazier) | CHBS | Healthy Families connects JMU to the rural communities of Page and Shenandoah Counties. The program will support home visiting services that not only benefit the families in the program but also act as experiential learning opportunities for JMU students. | 2020 | |
| Mad for STEM (Kerry Cresawn) | CSM, CISE & COE | STEM Center | Seeking funds to develop a state-wide JMU STEM Camp: a week-long summer day camp for middle school students from low-income communities. This camp will be an innovative way to increase the accessibility to STEM in Virginia while also serving as a strategy for recruiting from regions under-represented at JMU. | 2020 |
| Next Generation Energy (Masoud Kaveh) | CSM | Physics & Astronomy | Proposal for an innovative design for the next generation of energy storage devices that can replace traditional lithium-ion batteries. | 2020 |
| Paralympic Skill Lab (Cathy McKay) | CHBS | Kinesiology | By shifting the paradigm through which students view disability and disability sport, the stereotypes and social norms that guide student behaviors, attitudes, and decisions can be challenged, and a sense of responsibility for both self and community can be developed. | 2020 |
| Rebound (Brad Jenkins) | CAL | Studies and anecdotal evidence show that college students are less resilient and able to deal with failure now than in the past. We propose one way to increase student resiliency at the university. | 2020 | |
| WILD (Cannie Campbell) | Women in Leadership Development Steering Committee | WILD aims to cultivate women in leadership, professional development, career preparation and philanthropic interests. | 2020 | |
| Brew House Bridge (Samuel Morton) | CISE | Engineering | Upgrade to the campus academic brewery operation to state of the art equipment to allow students to develop skills they can utilize working in Virginia's craft brewery industry. | 2019 |
| Campus Pantry (Livvy Call) | Student Affairs | On JMU's campus, there are students going hungry. Food, housing and basic needs insecurity increases for historically marginalized populations such as students of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, nontraditional students, and veterans. | 2019 | |
| Madison Civic Leadership (Windi Turner) | University Programs | Outreach & Engagement | It is rare for an academic program to be designed specifically around the broad set of interdisciplinary skills and competencies needed to effectively engage local and state government within the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Madison Civic Leadership Series seeks to become this resource for Virginia's adult learners. | 2019 |
| Creating Community Relationships (Emily Parsons) | Hospitality, Sport & Recreation | This proposed learning activity and collaboration will allow for more students to have the ability to learn the skills to plan and execute an event while engaging with multiple community partners. | 2019 | |
| History more Colorful (Zack Bortolot) | CISE | Geography | This project will expand on realistically colorizing historical black and white imagery and creating 3D models from them. | 2019 |
| Learning by Giving (Laura Hunt Trull) | CHBS | Social Work | Allowing students in the JMU Grant Writing for Agencies course to partner with a local non-profit organization to write a grant proposal. | 2019 |
| Madison Garden (Wayne Teel) | CISE | ISAT | This project will help to establish a garden "lab" near the ISAT building that will allow students to work on projects relating to agriculture, agroforestry and land management within a convenient distance from the classroom. | 2019 |
| Smart Surfaces (Klebert Feitosa) | CSM | Physics & Astronomy | This project seeks to develop technology that can harvest clean energy from ocean, river and air currents with smart devices that mechanically adapt to flow conditions by changing its surface pattern on demand. | 2019 |
| Think Madison! (Laura Desportes) | COE | Education | Think College is a national organization dedicated to developing, expanding, and improving inclusive higher education options for people with intellectual disability. This project would allow JMU to become one of three schools in Virginia with a Think College program. | 2019 |
| Trash to Treasure (Jared Stoltzfus) | CISE | ISAT | Expanded polystyrene (EPS), commonly called Styrofoam, is well known for its high insulating value, but creates serious challenges as a waste product and there are few recycling programs available nationwide. | 2019 |
| Alumni Legacy (Cannie Campbell) | University Advancement | A program to engage alumni with children entering the college search process in an effort to educate the families and increase their comfort with the college search process as well as introduce them to the JMU Admissions process. | 2018 | |
| Chronic Cough Suppression (Kamarunas, Holland & Ludlow) | CISE & CHBS | Communication Sciences & Disorders, Engineering | The project, named MediValley, is creating a device that aims to suppress chronic coughing in adults. | 2018 |
| CIRCLE - Caring for Immigrant and Refugee Children's Learning Experiences (Vesna Hart) | Academic Affairs | Center for Global Engagement, Academic Affairs | The CIRCLE project will inspire local teachers and JMU education students to mindfully design learning experiences that cultivate students' ability to live successfully in a globally diverse community. | 2018 |
| Madison Online Marketing (Theresa Clarke) | COB | Marketing | The Madison Online Marketing Challenge (MOMC) is a replication and extension of the Google Online Marketing Challenge global competition, but held at the university level. | 2018 |
| Math Connection (Paul Warne) | CSM | Mathematics & Statistics | JMU Mathematics Connections Theater is using the power of the arts to help connect students to mathematics and raise the curtain on prevailing attitudes . | 2018 |
| Mindful Connection (Marsha Mays-Bernard) | Student Affairs | Wellness, Orientation & Multicultural Engagement |
Our students are often more connected to screens than they are to each other. JMU's Initiative for Contemplative Study and Practice has been working to address this by integrating mindfulness meditation and other practices into classes and programs.
|
2018 |
| Personalized Prosthetics (Callie Miller) | CISE | Engineering | This project will advance the field of prosthetics by exploring and advancing 3D printed productions for medical purposes such as splints, braces and prosthetics. | 2018 |
| Small Animal Data Station (Katrina Goebetz) | CSM & CISE | Biology, Engineering | Research by a wide variety of organizations requires the trapping of small animals. We developed a bait station which allows us to weigh, measure, and photograph trap visitors while allowing mammals to enter and exit at will. | 2018 |
| STEM Outreach Next Level (Kerry Cresawn) | CSM | Biology | This is a self-designed STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) outreach program that reaches 1,000 children per year in the Shenandoah Valley while also engaging JMU students with the highest needs populations in our community. | 2018 |
| Talent & Targets (Joyce Krech) | COB | Small Business Development | A key to success for new entrepreneurs and small businesses is "to be found” by having an up-to-date, engaging Web presence paired with targeted branding. These marketing tools, while recognized as essential, can be a challenging budget issue for new businesses. | 2018 |
| App for Child Education (Oris Griffin) | CISE & COE | ISAT, Education | Development of a mobile app for the Explore More Discovery Museum in downtown Harrisonburg. | 2017 |
| Biomimicry Structures (Hao Zhang) | CISE | ISAT | Exploring the possibility of designing high raw cost parts (made from stainless steel or titanium) utilizing 3D printing technology. | 2017 |
| Camp Kenya (Michelle Cude) | COE | Education | Construction of a small camp at a girl's school in Kenya to provide accommodations for visiting students and faculty. | 2017 |
| Cognitive Proclivity (Jonathan Keller) | CAL | Political Science | Proposal to develop a Cognitive Proclivity Module that can be administered to intelligence analysts to help them and their superiors better understand their cognitive proclivities and likely blindspots in the realm of estimating probabilities, assessing cause-effect linkages, and making forecasts. | 2017 |
| Community History (Kevin Borg) | CAL | History | Creation of a community webtool for visualizing historic maps, images, and stories associated with specific locations. | 2017 |
| Computer Science Pipeline (Dee Weikle) | CISE | Computer Science | Outreach effort to middle and high school girls to recruit and retain more women and women of diversity into computer science majors. | 2017 |
| Connect Hub 2.0 (Elise Barrella) | CISE | Engineering | A web platform designed to help students, faculty, alumni and the community to collaborate on project ideas, allowing team members from various disciplines and careers to innovate for social good. | 2017 |
| Female Spatial Ability (Diane Wilcox) | COE | Education | Development of an educational Virtual Reality application without gender bias that will provide students with experience visualizing complex concepts and solving 3-dimensional puzzles. | 2017 |
| Food Literacy (Mikaela Schmitt-Harsh) | University Studies | IDLS | Develop and establish a local food forest, a food production system that is self-sustaining and low maintenance, to benefit JMU and the community. | 2017 |
| Virtual Worlds (Carol Dudding) | CHBS | Communication Sciences & Disorders | Development of an innovative virtual simulation lab in the College of Health & Behavioral Studies allowing educators to design interactive simulations for students with no risk to actual patients. | 2017 |
| ARES (James Herrick) | CSM | Biology | Authentic Research in Epidemiology for Students (ARES) wish to expand lab opportunities for students to partner with the FDA to identify Salmonella strands and to be available to crowdsource research into potential outbreaks. | 2016 |
| Brain Plasticity (Mark Gabriele) | CSM | Biology | Increasing research on brain flexibility to improve hearing disabilities in a cost effective manner. | 2016 |
| Brewing & Distilling (Samuel Morton) | CISE | Engineering | Creation of a Center for Brewing and Distilling to enhance support and collaboration within Virginia's booming brewing industry. | 2016 |
| Camp in Kenya (Michelle Cude) | COE | Education | Construction of a small camp at a girl's school in Kenya to provide accommodations for visiting students and faculty. | 2016 |
| Pathogenic Bacteria (Seifert) | CSM | Biology, Chemistry, Physics | Using chemistry, physics and biology to create a more effective antibacterial agent. | 2016 |
| Restorative Justice (Josh Bacon) | Student Affairs | Campus Community Restorative Justice Initiative to work toward community solutions for student transgressions while growing in empathy and understanding. | 2016 | |
| Rocktown Music Lab (David Stringham) | CVPA | Music | A community center for a diverse student population that would reach outside of traditional music education, with the help of JMU student-teachers. | 2016 |
| Rural Mental Health (Schulte, Stewart & Marcopulos) | CHBS | Psychology | Improving rural mental health by establishing an integrated Behavior Health and Primary Care Internship and Residency to benefit the community and students by offering a rural residency in the Shenandoah Valley. | 2016 |
| Solar System (Jennifer Mangan) | COE & CSM | IDLS | Development of a scale model of the Solar System using the JMU campus. | 2016 |
| Well-Being Initiative / Adaptive Living (Gregg Henriques) | CHBS | Psychology | Opening a center on campus uniquely focused on mental health for students. | 2016 |
| Adapted Sports (Pate & Moran) | COB & CHBS | Hospitality Sports & Recreation, Health Services | Adapted sports project to engage people with disabilities and increase their confidence in performing the activities of daily life, especially those relating to becoming a JMU student. | 2015 |
| Career Networking Month (Alicia Pettis) | Alumni Relations, Leadership Giving | Networking event that targets young alumni, both to encourage giving and foster further employment connections among them. | 2015 | |
| Caregiving App (Julie Sanford) | CHBS | Nursing | Development of an app to be used by adult family caregivers to comfort and monitor their care recipient when unattended for short periods. The app would also organize medical and other critical information about the patient. | 2015 |
| Community Engagement (Kerry Cresawn) | CSM | Biology | Development of a program targeting K-5 students to increase the number of minority and low income students pursuing STEM majors and careers. | 2015 |
| Demystifying the Expert (Constantin & Feitosa) | CSM | Physics & Astronomy | Program featuring conversations between faculty from the College of Science and Mathematics and members of JMU's comedy troupe, New & Improv'd to highlight scientific discoveries in an informal atmosphere. | 2015 |
| Innovation & Entreprenuership (Bourne & Perrine) | University Advancement | Development of a short film and related video clips showcasing entrepreneurial activities in and around campus to share these events with alumni and the community. | 2015 | |
| Novel Platform to Study Cartilage Tissue Regeneration (Kubow & Bechtel) | CSM | Biology, Physics | Cross-disciplinary project studying cartilage tissue regeneration in an environment conducive to cartilage cell behavior. | 2015 |
| Smart Parking (Samy El-Tawab) | CISE | ISAT | Replacing current parking passes with smart tags including Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFID) to count cars entering and exiting parking lots and provide real-time parking lot information to drivers. | 2015 |
| STEM Fear Factor (Temple & Herrick) | CISE & CSM | ISAT, Biology | Removing the “fear factor” for young women aspiring to a STEM major with a computational biology research experience. | 2015 |
| Thermopower Wave Battery (Costel Constantin) | CSM | Physics |
Development of a thermopower wave battery design using manganese oxide as a wave source to resolve current lithium battery issues and challenges.
|
2015 |
| Concrete Spit (Ludwig & Tickle) | CSM & COB | Biology, Business |
Development of a concrete formula containing limestone which contributes to stronger shells and improved health in oyster reefs than the use of regular concrete.
|
2014 |
| ERAMAT Game (Deaton, Coffman & Mayiani) | CAL & CISE | ISAT, Anthropology, Sociology |
Tool that helps users gain a deeper understanding of problems in communities worldwide, as well as a learning tool for American students that contributes to greater global understanding.
|
2014 |
| Highway Stability (Admassu & Gipson) | CISE & CSM | Geology & Engineering |
A feasibility study of liquid polymers that could be applied to cut slopes along rural highways to protect motorists from rockfalls.
|
2014 |
| Innovation-Collaboration Entrepreneurship Ecosystem (Mary Lou Bourne) | Research & Scholarship |
The Ecosystem seeks to benefit the Shenandoah Valley and their Angel Investors, Harrisonburg and JMU communities and improve access to capital for budding entrepreneurs
|
2014 | |
| JMU Connection Theater (Paul Warne) | CSM & CVPA | Theater, Math |
Student actors integrate math, science, and humor on stage with the goal of teaching college students the relevance of math in their lives.
|
2014 |
| JMU to World (Giovanna Scarel) | CSM | Physics |
A workshop for both students and faculty featuring physicists to discuss the topic of infrared power generation. This will also help fund student research, giving JMU to World the opportunity to further working toward cutting-edge discoveries.
|
2014 |
| MadInc (Carol Hamilton) | COB | Business |
MadInc gives innovative students access to mentors, seed funding and other resources necessary to develop sustainable and high-impact businesses.
|
2014 |
| Madison Connect HUB (Kurt Paterson) | CISE | Engineering |
A web-based platform that will enable the JMU community and local/regional external partners to design a more interconnected community that propels new innovation for social good through cross-disciplinary and meaningful partnerships.
|
2014 |
| mTBI (Lincoln Gray) | CHBS | Communication Sciences & Disorders |
Study of traumatic brain injury in United States Military veterans and development of a training method to assist them to be less distracted by background sounds.
|
2014 |
| Riverside JMU Farm (Carole Nash) | CISE | ISAT |
Implementing placed-based learning at the JMU Farm, to include ecological and cultural studies as well as community outreach efforts.
|
2014 |
| Starry Nights JMU (Bogard & Virani) | CSM & CAL | Physics, Astronomy, English |
A campaign to make JMU a leader in energy-efficient campus lighting and help reduce light pollution in the Shenandoah Valley.
|
2014 |
| Winning with Money (Brad Barnett) | Financial Aid |
A presentation designed to enlighten students in four different financial areas: budgeting, debt repayment, credit and retirement.
|
2014 |
Corporate & Foundation Relations
