The students have been named University Innovation Fellows by Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.
Caroline Berger, Maxwell Kemats, and Yale Miller, three class of 2026 students at University of Cincinnati, have been given the opportunity to participate in Stanford University’s University Innovation Fellowship.
According to an article on University of Cincinnati's website, Aaron Bradley, who is an associate professor and director of the NEXT Innovation Scholars program at UC, discussed what this means for the three selected students, saying, “Students who enter this program are charged with exploring their campus landscape through a human-centered design lens and looking for opportunities to introduce innovation and make enhancements to the student experience. As their faculty champion, my role is to empower the fellows to do their best work and have the biggest possible impact. It’s a balance of challenging them to think boldly while making sure their ideas are viable and aligned with UC’s Next Lives Here strategic direction.”
Berger, Kemats, and Miller were all nominated by UC faculty members or administrators and were selected by application. They will all participate in a six-week course that will teach them how to analyze and identify opportunities for their campus to make changes in regard to innovation and creative thinking. During their time in the program, they will be mentored by a program alumni; in this case, Aaron Bradley.
Berger, who is an Industrial Design major, said of the opportunity, “It’s an honor and very much a privilege to be part of the University Innovation Fellows program. It’s a wonderful training program that I hope will lead us into a lifetime of resources and that will equip us with important design thinking and human-centric design skills so we can be catalysts for change at UC and beyond.”
Kemats, an Economics major, said, “I feel like the University Innovation Fellows program really empowers me to give back to the community. I am inspired to learn more about innovation and refine my skills and mindset to make meaningful change a reality.”
"I think it has been a great experience working as a team and I think what we have done as NEXT Innovation Scholars has prepared us to succeed at UIF in a way that's unprecedented. Typically, teams come together in UIF and they don't know each other and they aren't necessarily experienced in the kind of work that they are going to be trained on. But for us we have already worked on mini projects with NEXT Innovation and we were ready to run from the beginning,” said Miller, a Computer Science major.
The three University Innovation Fellows are tasked with designing new educational opportunities for fellow students based upon their findings during the six-week program. They will then implement their designs and serve as advocates throughout the rest of their time at UC, even past graduation as alumni.
This is the third year that UC students have been University Innovation Fellows. There are a total of 261 2023 University Innovation Fellows from 15 countries around the world.
“I’m very excited to see the impact that Caroline, Max, and Yale have moving forward. They’ve joined a global community of peers who are change-makers on their campuses. Being associated with the Stanford design school is an honor, and gaining access to the resources and network this brings levels them up,” said Bradley.
For more information about University of Cincinnati, visit the school’s website.