e5 Project Archive

Tolga’s e5 project focused on creating a virtual gym buddy to motivate people to exercise, and provide feedback to the user. Inspired by the idea of “gymtimidation,” or the intimidation or fear that people feel around starting or retaining an exercise regimen, Tolga worked on developing Lambda, a system of wearable sensors paired with a mobile app and cloud service to track the user’s biometric signals. Lambda analyzes the data collected to generate personalized workout recommendations.

Shelley dedicated her e5 year to promoting the Mindful University Project, teaching four-week meditation workshops and conducting a research project on emerging meditation technologies. During her fifth year, she became a meditation teacher and a yoga instructor, and researched the risks and benefits of medication apps and wearable hardware.

Yuchen spent her e5 year working on a company she co-founded. Teamond is an online platform providing Chinese food delivery service to University of Rochester students. Teamond works directly with local restaurants on creating a delivery menu, and batching deliveries at predetermined times and locations to increase delivery efficiency. They plan to expand beyond the UR campus to the greater Rochester community.

Sophia was already running a face and body painting company when she was accepted to the e5 program. She spent her e5 year learning more about marketing and business strategies for her company. She also spent a semester interning in Washington, DC and learning about corporate social responsibility, which led to her making changes in her company to lessen the environmental impact of her business. See Sophia’s work at http://impactartscompany.com/.

Linnie’s e5 project explored immersive art and theater, creating installations designed to bring an audience inside a story. Linnie brings together artists, actors, and people with technical theater skills to create unique and innovative experiences. One example of this was Homeworld, which transformed the Barbara J. Burger iZone into the site of an alien invasion for two days in March 2019. Read more about Linnie’s project and see photos from Homeworld at https://enrollment.rochester.edu/blog/when-a-ufo-lands-on-campus/.

To assist students in preparing for their next step after their senior year, Alexander Abrams and partner Mira Agneshwar ’19 worked with the Greene Center for Career Education and Connections to create an informational web tool for undergraduates called Next Step. Though planning resources exist, students are often unwilling to seek out the information for themselves and are therefore unaware of the opportunities they have. Abrams selected courses – including digital media, marketing, and linguistics – to support the development and content creation for the web tool.

Grant O’Brien and Max Berlin spent their e5 year working on Empire Film and Media Ensemble, a nonprofit designed to perform and record a film music repertoire in addition to cultivating enthusiasm for film music and contemporary media. O’Brien and Berlin utilized the e5 program to develop a stable and sustainable non-profit with the information gained from the entrepreneurial and marketing courses. They also aimed to provide tools that would help create higher quality music and productions from the AME courses, film studies courses and an independent study.

John Uchal, a dual major at the Eastman School of Music and the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, spent his e5 year giving classical music a technological twist, emphasizing the divide by observing the practices and methods used to design and modify musical instruments themselves. Failure to incorporate information from scientific studies has increased the break between modern technology and instrument making, leaving the method for instrument design today the same as it was a hundred years ago. A main goal of Uchal’s e5 project was to study and devise a modern method that can reduce the resources and time required to modify and improve instruments, that would benefit not only the instrument makers, but also the musicians who would have better instruments sooner at potentially a lower cost.

Mark Auden’s KEY year was dedicated to mathematic and scientific entrepreneurship. Basing his project on the volumes of Euclid, Auden hoped to recreate the simplicity and convenience of those volumes for the twenty-first century. Because theorems are constantly in use, Auden aimed to create an online database that can be updated in real time – ready for anyone to use and just a mouse click away.

Connor Hess utilized the KEY program to explore the cultural connotations of mental illness through film. After completing coursework on media studies and public health, Hess created an artifact documenting the stigma of mental illness at this point in American culture, specifically through the lens of college students. In addition to the classes taken, he also worked with the university’s Undergraduate Film Council, UR Cinema Group, and Counseling Center to ensure proper methods and representation.

For his KEY year, Anis Kallel travelled around Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East/North African regions to interact with a variety of startup ecosystems. Kallel believed that emerging markets are no longer “hubs of low cost manufacturing and unskilled labor” – they are now outlets for vast creativity and innovation. By interacting with startup organizations in these regions, Kallel tested his resourcefulness and sought to explore the advantages and limitations of working in a growing startup atmosphere.

Ria Karve’s e5 project emerged through her work with The Welfare of Stray Dogs, an organization that cares for stray animals based in Mumbai, India. During her e5 year, Karve worked on a children’s novel with stray dogs as central characters in hopes of encouraging children to think critically about their relationship to the animals and interrogate why people often prefer pure-bred dogs to mongrels found on the streets. Karve hopes to combine her classwork from creative writing and art courses, and her insights from internships in publishing, to eventually publish a book that will build empathy for stray animals in young individuals.

After participating in the University of Rochester Debate Union throughout his undergrad career, Syed Aziz was inspired to develop the Rochester City Debate Initiative (RCDI). Throughout his KEY year, Aziz hoped to foster critical thinking and empower Rochester’s youth to speak their minds and actively advance solutions. Working with East High students, he emphasized four topics during weekly sessions: 1) Basics of Debate; 2) Research and Synthesis; 3) Deconstruction of Argumentation; and 4) Sample Topic Area: International Human Rights.

Advertising on a college campus may not seem too difficult, but club leaders like Jeff Hrebenach have identified weaknesses in the traditional flyer-reliant marketing. For his KEY year, Hrebenach instated Pollinate Publicity, a unique distribution service and easy-to-design interface to simplify and amplify on-campus announcements. With the support of community entrepreneurs and classes in business and marketing at the University, Hrebenach aimed to disrupt the status quo.

Jiahui Sun worked with the Creative Minds program – a local outreach initiative that underscored the importance of art education. Creative Minds, a non-profit founded by U of R alums, provided an equal-opportunity arts program for students in the Rochester area. Sun helped to further the program, both by providing new offerings to participants and through additional grant funding and improved money management.

After a mid-college shift in major and life goals, Evan Basta co-founded Rochester Tech Repairs – an on-campus service dedicated to fixing hardware issues (such as broken screens or bad hard drives). Though the venture found success at UR, Basta used his KEY year to expand RTR’s reach to other students throughout Monroe County. By emphasizing his entrepreneurial instincts, he was able to create a lasting service that continues to help students in Rochester.

Anissa Elahi and David McFarland-Porter used the KEY year to develop and implement an outdoor education program for refugee students in Rochester. Unlike traditional learning experiences, Elahi and McFarland-Porter’s plan centered on outdoor activities (think: hiking, camping, etc.) to foster an appreciation for biology, ecology, and sustainability. Though the main focus was on “typical” high school topics, they also addressed cultural and socioeconomic issues.

For his KEY project, Ezekiel Starling founded No Chill Records, a label based in UR’s Rettner Hall. As his main goal, Starling provided a space for local students (specifically those at the School of the Arts) to come on campus and record any music they wanted. While also facilitating artistic expression, Starling hoped to provide a link for these high school students to the University of Rochester, intentionally creating a lasting bond that could translate into future applicants.

For Yuyue Chen’s KEY year, they decided to work on an existing venture called Teamond, LLC. Teamond was an app that allowed students to order warm food on-the-go (in lieu of those cold sandwiches and bland salads offered by traditional cafes around campus). Courses such as financial planning and social network theory helped develop a product platform, while entrepreneurial courses contributed to Chen’s overall business strategy.

Because he was disappointed in UR’s existing mode of art selling, Daniel Hargrove created a moving gallery on campus. His main goals were: 1) to create alternative student outlets and encourage artistic expression; 2) establish a following no campus and create hype among the student body; and 3) organize an arts-focused group to foster on-campus creativity.

Kedar Shashidhar and David Porter (KEY 2016) made the most of KEY by testing their knowledge and honing their technical expertise. Building upon their senior design project, Porter and Shashidhar built an audio-based “video” game. The two created an immersive app with a detailed soundscape, allowing individuals to close their eyes and play the game via sound cues. By combining their remaining engineering classes with a course on technical entrepreneurship and an entrepreneurial mentorship, they combined their studies and interest areas to form a potential enterprise.

Prior to the start of his KEY year, Michael Staffeldt co-founded the Empire Film Music Ensemble – a collective of University of Rochester musicians interested in scoring films. In addition to playing existing movie scores for live audiences, Staffeldt’s group also worked with an RIT film student to provide music for a major project. After a successful first year with a handful of feature performances, he decided to use his KEY project to strengthen the relationship between UR music students/composers and RIT filmmakers. Staffeldt aimed to build an ongoing degree program that would help students for years to come.

Noting the emotional attachments people make to art they create, Ciaran Spence used his KEY year to begin Rochester Community Art Building (RCAB). To avoid throwing out artwork, Spence opened a space for artists to donate old pieces that could then be given out to the community. Though each piece had a six-month limit, Spence created a way for old art to be appreciated (and if not appreciate after the time limit, recycled into raw materials for new pieces).

Through the development of an outreach program, Jennifer Lawrence aimed to reduce cultural stereotypes and introduce new audiences to the healing power and catharsis of the opera. In addition to simply spreading the word about Rochester’s opera scene, Lawrence planned two major projects: Opera on the Town and Opera in the Classroom. Each of these ventures helped to integrate theatre, foreign languages, and arts into daily community life.

After discovering a passion for early-childhood education, Thomas Downey joined the Learning and Exploring at Play (LEAP) organization, which allows undergrads to tutor K-3 students in the Rochester City School District. Though LEAP provided training to the undergraduates, Downey felt that more could be done. During his KEY year, he had three goals: 1) organize at least ten training sessions per semester; 2) brainstorm solutions for sustainability of LEAP; and 3) apply the training session format to other groups on campus.

Centering on the philosophy of refinement, Lucian Copeland’s KEY Project explored the potential for a virtual reality (VR) system prototype. In addition to his courses in engineering, business, and entrepreneurship, Copeland used his KEY year to research existing VR technology and to build a foundational network. As co-founder of a research and prototyping group, Copeland also recognized the importance of finding the balance between business knowledge and software expertise during this experiential year. Though he knew the possibilities for VR in terms of gaming, he also wanted to understand its value as a social tool, a communications channel, and a visualization platform.

Noticing the lack of design training for young engineering students, Yaron Adar used his KEY year to establish a project organization and management portal to help increase student independence, while also providing the opportunity to learn new design skills. Though the platform would be mostly for student use, Adar’s idea also allowed instructors to give personalized input or volunteer on certain projects. In addition to his engineering background, Adar completed computer and business courses to help put his idea into motion.

Realizing the lack of reliable sources and misinformation regarding the Affordable Care Act, Anima Ghimire and Cody Civiletto spent their KEY year developing a website and YouTube series on the ACA. These online resources, according to Ghimire and Civiletto, would help young Americans (17 to 26 year olds) understand the legislation and provide a platform for asking questions and getting accessible answers from their peers. Using a combination of healthcare policy courses and mentorship from marketing/digital strategy professionals, the two students worked through their KEY year in three phases: 1) research; 2) creation; and 3) implementation.

Though the University of Rochester’s radio station (WRUR) began in the mid-twentieth century, Kevin Scantlen believed that the U of R wasn’t taking full advantage of the station. A member of WRUR for his four years of undergrad, Scantlen used his KEY year to push other departments in the university to use the radio as part of experiential learning initiatives. As his ultimate goal, Scantlen hoped to create a radio-centric curriculum, comprised of two to three courses. These classes would emphasize interdisciplinary and hands-on learning.

David Porter and Kedar Shashidar (KEY 2017) made the most of KEY by testing their knowledge and honing their technical expertise. Building upon their senior design project, Porter and Shashidhar built an audio-based “video” game. The two created an immersive app with a detailed soundscape, allowing individuals to close their eyes and play the game via sound cues. By combining their remaining engineering classes with a course on technical entrepreneurship and an entrepreneurial mentorship, they combined their studies and interest areas to form a potential enterprise.

The University of Rochester’s emphasis on learning as an aspect of a more meaningful life inspires many UR undergraduates go on to receive higher degrees. During their time as undergrads, three KEY students – Brian Bernstein, Andrew Bui, and Qiuyu Li – discovered a lack of graduate entrance test preparation. To remedy this, they dedicated their KEY year to devising preparatory workshops, each focused on a different entrance exam (including the GRE, LSAT, and MCAT). Each individual used their area of expertise as a way to help other students prepare and to turn their passions into valuable enterprises.

Chee Kong worked with the Creative Minds program – a local outreach initiative that underscored the importance of art education. Creative Minds, a non-profit founded by U of R alums, provided an equal-opportunity arts program for students in the Rochester area. Kong decided to further the program, both by providing new programs to participants and through additional grant funding and improved money management.

Jalon Howard aimed to incorporate Rochester’s musical past into an a cappella competition for the city’s youth during his KEY year. As a member of UR’s After Hours, a co-ed a cappella group, Howard competed in collegiate competitions and hoped to provide the excitement and opportunity for high schoolers in the area. Through the Pre-Collegiate A Cappella Competition (or PCAC), Howard wanted to provide an artistic outlet, a creative space, and a network of Rochester performers. Using the After Hours members, he provided student groups with mentoring and guidance, while planning the actual competition.

For her KEY year, Lisa Nickels pursued an under-examined side of the arts: arts management. After finding a lack of combined arts and business courses at Eastman School of Music, Nickels decided to research curriculum, programs, and other institutions that offer this type of hybrid education. The inspiration for this project followed an internship at the DeVos Institute of Arts Management, where she began to view arts centers from a business perspective, not just as a space for creativity and performance. Because of her existing artistic training, Nickels used the KEY year to advance her knowledge of business, leading to a proposal for a more substantial arts management program at the University of Rochester.

Eastman student Max Kanowitz pinpointed a need for young musicians: an online advising system to help students with auditions. Because of the sky-high expectations during these tryouts (for both higher education programs and non-academic festivals/productions), Kanowitz realized that high school students need a formidable audition to be noticed – one that he could help structure through his own experiences. Utilizing platforms like Skype and Facetime, his business integrated his technical proficiency with management skills acquired through his KEY studies.

Corinne Calabretta’s KEY project dealt with the familiar issues of adolescent growth and community building in Rochester’s urban landscape. Calabretta’s plan centered on collaboration through art, such as the creation of public murals. Her idea sparked during her time as a tutor at East High School and developed while engaging young students in community restoration through the Upward Bound organization.

Throughout his KEY year, Bohannon studied marketing and entrepreneurship to supplement his experiential learning. Drawing upon his own experiences as a club leader, Jacob Bohannon created a platform (Welcome) to assist organizations in tracking potential members, communicating with them, and updating their information in real time. In order to simplify the process, Bohannon’s app used familiar technology to streamline the various bits of information collected from individuals.

Eastman student Lili Sarayrah combined her interests in music and assisting refugee communities during her KEY year. After taking courses in entrepreneurship, grant writing, and marketing, Sarayrah served as Co-Artistic Director of the Sound ExChange Project (an Eastman startup tasked with breaking down cultural barriers and making live music more accessible to those of all backgrounds). The culmination of this project was a benefit concert to collaborate with refugee students and create a shared space within the Rochester community.

For her KEY project, Mariah Meyer delved into a niche market – printmaking and the commercialization of printmaking products. Through two internships, Meyer learned about the printmaking process and learned via firsthand experience. After taking a variety of business courses, she hoped to develop a for-profit venture in the printmaking business.

Conor McNamara, a member of the UR Biodiesel Team, helped expand the club’s output of alternative fuel sources to include the production of soap made from the team’s waste products. As part of his KEY year, McNamara hoped to perfect the process for making the soap, establish a permanent on-campus space for production, and distribute the soap throughout the UR community.

During his KEY year, Dylan Price sought to create an online forum to link University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music, and Rochester Institute of Technology students interested in audio and visual collaboration (i.e., scoring student films). Additionally, Price also hoped to utilize the River Campus’s recording studios with the help of UR audio engineering students. Throughout the year, he developed an ecosystem for student collaboration across universities in the Rochester area.

Throughout her time at the University of Rochester, Marisa Straub studied American Sign Language, but noticed that her peers were unaware of the large deaf community in the area. Working with the Deaf Wellness Center and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Straub established a Deaf Awareness Day on campus and encouraged her fellow students to interact with the deaf population in Rochester.

For decades America has been known as a perpetrator of promoting unhealthy eating habits and lifestyles, catering to desires that demand instant gratification, rather than taking time to understand the value of nutrition and healthy living. However, recent events such as trends toward local foods and organic farming, and First Lady Michelle Obama’s battle against childhood obesity, are making Americans more aware of unhealthy behaviors and creating a larger demand for food services that incorporate nutritional values into their tenets. I would like to contribute to this new health wave by creating a business plan for a café that offers healthy, tasty food options in addition to monthly events that teach customers how to incorporate healthy habits into their daily lives. In tandem with an emphasis on good health, my café will exercise sustainable business practices and purchasing local products, which all support the end goal of teaching others to adopt healthy habits in relation to one another and the planet.

With so much emphasis at the University of Rochester placed on autonomous student decision making and co-curricular involvement, there is surprisingly little formal instruction on leadership skills that better enable students to be more effective. In my Kauffman Entrepreneurial Year, I hope to work with the Rochester Center for Community Leadership to craft a core curriculum and integrate it into the multitude of programs already offered by their office. I then specifically hope to engage student organization leaders in new ways that makes them more effective mentors, role models, and team leaders. While I see potential immediate benefits for our students and the campus community, I hope that students will apply the skills learned to career work far into the future.

In order for music students to become successful in whatever artistic path they choose, they need to understand how to market themselves as a product. If they are able to approach their craft from a business viewpoint, the rapidly evolving music industry is at their command. With previous KEY projects paving the way, the Simon Business School, the Eastman School of Music, and other essential resources, the University of Rochester has the potential to create one of the leading Music Industry Programs in the country. This KEY project involves formulating an effective plan demonstrating how a Music Industry Program is not only imperative for the financial success of future music students, but how implementing this program into the University’s academic curriculum is extremely feasible. The student will accomplish this by first researching other Universities with acclaimed Music Industry Programs. The student will then work on putting together a student-run record label through the University’s radio station and a local record company, in order to bring in “real world” experience.

Twelve junior and senior high school students, the Teen Entrepreneurial Educators of Nonviolence, T.E.E.N., will positively impact our community and particularly the lives of Rochester youth through nonviolent, ahimsa education, inspiration, and enabling innovative community projects. Selected to represent their peers from Wilson Foundation Magnet High School, these students will receive extensive training in nonviolence and ahimsa (the force of acting based on truth) principles, methodologies and applications. Local schools, city organizations and institutions will call upon this group to understand their message of enlightened alternatives to the cycle of violence in the 19th ward and the Rochester community.

The primary goal of Fingerlakesfinest.com is to open up the renowned and gorgeous region of the Finger Lakes and its products to the rest of the country. The idea is to offer wineries an increased web presence in the growing market of internet advertising as well as to offer them an increase in wine sales by expanding their reach beyond the local stores and vendors. Many of the Finger Lakes wineries have difficulty competing on a large scale yet the quality and home grown feel effuse their wines. In exchange they will sign on and agree to pay a commission on all sales through our web interface. Moreover, many drop shipping laws specifically for wines are changing around the country, making it easier for smaller wineries to compete through drop shipping. However, many of these wineries do not have the resources of expertise and partnerships that FLF (FingerLakesFinest) can offer them.

Claire and Andrew intend to establish an LGBTQ resource center on campus, with several goals in mind. First, they aim to have a full-time staff person work in a designated office space. This person will be both knowledgeable and accepting of individuals outside of the normal sexual boundaries. Second, this office will contain information about each component of the aforementioned acronym. Much about them are not fully understood by the general public, seeing as sex education is seriously lacking in most high schools these days. Third, one of the center’s goals will be to establish at least one gender neutral bathroom in all freshman housing. None of the dormitories on the Residential Quad or Susan B. Anthony have a gender neutral bathroom, which is a dire problem for transgendered and gender-queer individuals. Last year, there was a prospective University student who was transgendered that ultimately decided against being enrolled at the University, because she was uncomfortable being forced to use a men’s bathroom. This movement would ultimately make the University of Rochester more welcoming to such students.

Undergraduate students will work with and alongside residents of the Plymouth Exchange Neighborhood (PLEX) to improve the health of the area through sustainable service learning projects. Service learning is a form of experiential education in which a group of students engage in organized activities together that address community needs. Rebecca will work with the residents to assist in achieving their identified needs by focusing on what they want. The $100 will be used to make the projects possible and get them running. The $100 Solution Program is based on the principle that one does not need a large sum of money to help the world. The goal of the program is to improve the health of the PLEX community, which will help improve relations between the PLEX community and the University, while creating a sustainable program in which undergraduates can participate in service learning.

Prior to applying for the KEY year, Roman had volunteered at Monroe High School as a mathematics tutor for Advanced Placement (AP) Calculus course. As he tutored, he learned that many students drop Advanced Placement classes, so Roman and AP Calculus teacher Guy Calkins innovated an event called Mathathon. This idea involves setting up a math-fact contest with prizes (bags of candy, monopoly board game, etc) during seventh grade lunch period twice a week. Intrigued by the possibility of winning a prize, some students have been preparing for the contest at home by reviewing flash cards provided earlier in the week. The idea is to bolster students’ participation and preparation so that they are adequately prepared for the course and interested in their learning experience.

In prosthetics, one of the most crucial aspects is alignment. Especially when patients must apply and remove their own prosthesis, alignment can be a tedious task. This project takes the pin lock system prosthetic for trans-fibial amputees and optimizes the pin system to make application more efficient and less stressful. For cushioning, patients often wear a specialized silicone sleeve over the residual stump, which in turn is put inside the actual prothesis. When using the pin lock system, a brass or plastic pin is applied to the end of the silicone sleeve. This pin plugs into a lock that is built into the leg socket. When the patient has to apply this socket and lock it to their leg, they must align the pin properly in order to activate the system. Aligning this pin with the lock can be difficult as the pin does not move. This project will focus on designing a pin that will attach to these silicone sleeves such that it will be able to move in a joystick fashion. The hope is this freely moving pin will allow the patient to more fluently and efficiently attach their prosthetic leg. This will be exceptionally beneficial for more elderly patients who may have more difficulty applying their prosthesis. The project primarily focuses on the design of this piece along with obtaining a patent for the design. The ultimate goal is to obtain prototypes from a manufacturer for potential use in clinical trails.

The clothing line, Amagi Clothing, was founded in October 2010 by Stephen Macaskill. Amagi is a Sumerian cuneiform symbol and is thought to be the very first symbol representing liberty. The clothing line will promote individual liberty such as life, peace, and equality through the designs and marketing of the clothing. Stephen will be researching his competition to see where they have gone right and wrong in marketing. He will also be learning the advanced history and concepts of liberty to understand liberty on a higher level so that he can find unique ways to promote liberty in the marketing strategy. Stephen will also be developing a marketing strategy that he will launch, implementing it with the guidance and support of several professors and business owners.

The objective of the RawAdventure Project is to create a single-location recreational fitness center for adults and teens that provides an environment to stimulate one’s body, test one’s imagination, and excite one’s sense of adventure with or without demanding exceptional strength, endurance, or physical skills. RawAdventure exemplifies recreational fitness by utilizing elements of challenge courses, gymnastic facilities, and playgrounds. When customers enter RawAdventure, they can expect to climb hanging nets, jungle-gym structures, and rope swings in between jumping from trampolines to balance beams, thereby building a variety of muscle groups while providing a cardio workout in competitive, individual, or team contexts. Appealing to the child in us all, RawAdventure will provide patrons with an ever-changing recreational environment perfect for workouts, nights out, corporate events, and personal entertainment.

This project’s goal is to create an online marketplace to connect University of Rochester students with each other and the surrounding Rochester community. The online marketplace will be available free of charge for both the seller and the buyer. Currently, the revenue model is based on selling ad space on our website to local businesses. Aaron, Gao, and Gautam will primarily focus on selling ad space to businesses that provide useful services to University of Rochester students.

Student Supported Agriculture is a project spearheaded by two KEY scholars, Annalise Kjolhede and Caitlin Smigelski with the additional aid of the Director of the Gandhi Institute, Kit Miller and director of Dining Services, Cameron Schauf. The aim is to create a campus garden in which University of Rochester students and community members can cultivate edible crops such as vegetables and herbs to either be sold to dining services or used for their own consumption. The emphases of the project are to create positive student-community interactions, to educate students through active learning and, above all, to instill in University of Rochester students a conscientious mindset in food consumption and production while providing locally grown foods to dining services.

Biodiesel is formulated from waste vegetable oil through a conversion process, creating a waste product containing both methanol and glycerin. Currently this byproduct is disposed of at the end of the biodiesel production process. Glycerin alone is a valuable and important compound used in the production of pharmaceuticals, soaps and myriad other products. Kathleen will be working diligently to develop a safe, clean and efficient method of creating liquid soap from biodiesel byproducts. She estimates that liquid soap will be available in a commercial form by the spring of 2011. This project will benefit the environment, help to ensure the long-term viability of the Biodiesel Project, reduce University expenses, and ultimately generate funds for future biodiesel projects, as the soap created may be sold at the University bookstore.

This project will consist of working with the University of Rochester Admissions Department in order to create a new, interactive, 3D environment in which prospective students will be able to take virtual tours which will be far more immersive than anything they could expect short of visiting the campus itself. Ideally, this application would be able to do even more than this, allowing prospective students to interact with each other as well as current students or “virtual tour guides.” This technology has been barely tapped and has almost unlimited potential which could expand far beyond the University environment. Evan will be employing students or graduate students from universities like Rochester Institute of Technology who will work part time throughout this summer and next year following the design and development plan drawn up by himself and his advisory board. There is a lot of inherent value in the project beyond even just the final product. The process of starting a business, recruiting employees, and implementing software engineering design standards all will give me invaluable experience with the industry.

With dance comes an opportunity for dialogue, social development, personal growth, cultural awareness and expression. A united community of dance at the University has the potential to contribute to the educational growth of its students. This project aims to plan and produce a dance festival in which members of the University of Rochester community will have the chance to learn, teach and perform a vast diversity of dance styles, while exhibiting and experiencing the value of dance. Through collaborative learning through movement and dance education, a greater appreciation for dance will be cultivated, adding to the intellectual experience at the University. This project aims to not only connect students to each other, but also to professional dance educators and companies in the Rochester area, and community members as well. From there, the festival would ideally become an annual tradition at the University.

How can an investor appraise the potential market performance of an investment? Typically, the process involves a great deal of time-consuming research. These students propose a method to analyze the content of articles and reports, and to use statistics to determine the importance of each extracted item. This project will focus on creating a system to process and quantify semantic information and use statistical methods to make predictions about stocks, with the long-range goal of offering this service to large companies and small investors.

This project is an investigation into how an entrepreneurial (or intrapreneurial) venture can be created within an existing company. By working with ExactData LLC, a software business, this student seeks to examine what happens to the ideas that float around within the company, but which the company has decided not to pursue. Might these orphan ideas be profitably brought to the marketplace? This student seeks to develop a business model around the concept of bringing technological ideas to the market, and to assist the company in implementing this idea, should it prove feasible to do so.

Initiatives such as Eastman’s Institute for Music Leadership and its Arts Leadership Program have sought to make Eastman students increasingly savvy about the entrepreneurship that musicians must practice in order to become leaders in the world of music. By studying how student musicians are taught business and entrepreneurship at both the University of Rochester and other colleges and conservatories, Michael will evaluate the integration of music and business curricula in order to understand how best to prepare young musicians for their professional lives.

This project will create UR Consulting, a group of students interested in business who would use their intellectual talents and curiosity to consult with Rochester-area businesses. The group will provide a student-driven service engaging with campus resources to create solutions for clients, while providing students with the hands on, real world experience they need in order to navigate a competitive job market. UR Consulting will give students a competitive edge as well as honing their business skills and fostering connections with alumni and the surrounding community.

In an era in which there is substantial pressure on universities to “go green” and encourage sustainable energy usage, there are many state and federal public policies that use grants and assistance to promote private institutions to invest in energy efficiency improvements. By examining how the University of Rochester can capitalize on these existing incentives in order to enhance its facilities, this student hopes to encourage the university to lower its energy demand, decrease utility costs, and reduce its eco-footprint.

As the University of Rochester expands its connections with the off-campus community, there is increasing student interest in reaching out to the communities surrounding the university. These students seek to create an off-campus art gallery which will enable University of Rochester student artists to sell their art and work with community members. By working with community members as their mentors, students will gain knowledge about what it takes to run a business, curate an exhibit, install a show, and coordinate and host events.

In the United States today, nearly 5.7 million adults suffer from bipolar disorder, yet until recently the disease mechanism has remained unknown. Newly published research from McLean Hospital has begun to shed light on the little known about the disorder’s biological underpinnings, and has developed a possible method for detecting the disorder; to date, this revolutionary method of diagnosis has not been used, and is available for license. This student seeks to develop a business plan for commercializing the biomarker, and for assessing the commercial feasibility of this new detection method.

Every year, Rochester becomes home to approximately 600 refugees coming from countries all over the world. These KEY students will develop a yearly conference for refugee students in local high schools in order to inform students of the college application process, financial aid, and career opportunities.

At the present moment, the support for the University of Rochester’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered community comes primarily through student organizations. These students seek to change this by helping to establish a resource center to meet the needs of the University’s LGBT community. In addition to conducting benchmarking research to determine how the university measures in comparison with other institutions, these students will also determine what other Rochester-area resources are available to meet the needs of supporting the LGBT community.

A variety of sustainability initiatives currently exist on campus. Laney proposes to evaluate the entrepreneurial activity of these campus groups and projects with an eye toward building on their strengths. She plans to create a database of information about these efforts with data compiled through research and interviews, and to offer a series of recommendations to the university of ways in which to improve sustainability efforts.

These students will build the foundations for Sustainability Systems Engineering, Inc., a sustainability consulting firm that will work with Rochester companies in order to use their resources wisely, with low environmental impact and efficient use of technology. Working to create a business plan, model and strategy, these students will conclude their project by conducting a sustainability assessment on both University offices and a company in the city of Rochester.

These students are developing a networking database and Web site for educators and volunteers in Rochester, called thePointRochester.org. The students hope to bring to light some of the efforts employed around Rochester and to provide a useful balance of information that the public is free to use. The goal of the project is for the Web site to become a hub of information for the campus and the greater Rochester community. The site provides profiles and mission statements for each volunteer group, contact information, and will soon include the program schedules for tutoring efforts around Rochester. The site features educational outreach initiatives from River Campus and aims to include community programs as well. The site will also feature academic writings on pedagogy and education theories, cultural competency materials, and individual reflections.

This student hoped to create the University of Rochester Student Investment Fund, a chance for students to learn bout investment strategies and valuation using hypothetical money. This Student Investment Fund will help students interested in learning about finance gain firsthand experience in investing, helping them associate practical application with theoretical understanding. As the students practice making investments without financial risk, they will learn more about how to analyze stocks, bonds, real estate, and financial derivatives. Param now trains students in practical financial modeling techniques that are used in Investment Banking, Investment Management and Equity Research; and gives students an opportunity to perform real world analysis. They will now be able to look at companies and perform valuation on them.

Modern music is a quickly-changing business, one in which accessible, user-friendly technology provides all musicians with the ability to record their own professional-sounding music. Unfortunately, very few colleges and universities offer much training in audio production or music technology. This KEY student will write a proposal that will outline the most efficient way of implementing one or more courses in music technology at the University of Rochester. He will also work with a local recording studio to crate an internship for a current Rochester student to learn about audio technology from a practical perspective. He also founded the UR Audio Group, a new student organization.

The goal of this KEY project is to research and develop a guide for introducing a popular music performance program into collegiate music curricula. Through a combination of coursework, workshops, ensemble performances, and interviews with representatives from music schools and professional organizations, these two students will investigate methods of integrating musicians ranging in style and instrument into a pop music ensemble. During their KEY year, they will gather information on the growth of pop music in American culture and its stylistic developments. They will determine the general conditions necessary for this type of program to be successful, and explore the application of their ideas at Rochester while observing any issues that arise which could lead to failure of the program. From there, they will attempt to create a model for a lasting pop music performance program that could be established at a variety of music schools ad organizations.

Sports have the power to provide kids with innumerable skills including teamwork, personal achievement communication, focus, behavior management, and empowerment. The Rochester Alliance of Youth Sports (RAYS) will become a youth development program created by this KEY student that integrates education, athletics, community service and ethics to empower Rochester City School District youth (grades 1-3) and support them through many different aspects of their lives. RAYS will use sports as the mobilizing force to bring youth together, however athletics will not be the primary focus of the program.

This project involves connecting and fostering a growing relationship between the University of Rochester community and the businesses on Genesee Street. More specifically, the two students organizing this project are hoping to make the neighborhoods surrounding the University more college-friendly by offering more options in terms of off-campus dining services to incoming freshmen and students living in Sector 4. They intend to reach this goal by incorporating interested businesses in Sector 4 into the UROS Program and marketing them along with current participating businesses to UR students.

This group of three students has proposed a KEY project that addresses the issue of the isolation of the UR student body from the greater-Rochester community. Such a feat will inspire a mixing of cultures and ideas that will ultimately benefit both the students and Rochester locals. They plan to achieve this goal by organizing and hosting a lasting series of visual and performing arts events at unique locations within the city, with the intent of attracting broad audiences from both campus and the city. Artistic input will be sought from the UR, RIT, Eastman School of Music, and local Rochester organizations such as RoCo and ARTWalk.

Caitlin will study the place of the Rochester Museum and Science Center and the University of Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery in the Rochester community by examining the relationship between the museums and a college aged audience. By documenting the institutional and public perceptions of the museum, and by conducting background analyses of the museums’ mission statements and growth over time, Caitlin hopes to identify why these museums fail to sustain a large college audience. Her work with these Rochester museums will be further enhanced by participating in a museum internship on London, England for a full semester. This should enable her to provide a basis for comparisons between European and American museums, as well as museums in a moderate sized city and a large metropolis.

Jonathan will spend the next three years working as the project director and developer of a plan to restore the pipe organ in Strong Auditorium. This organ is one of the most historically important instruments in the United States and, as such, should unquestionably be restored as a living historical document and prized possession of the University. Jonathan will be responsible for the publicity, research, fundraising, and grant writing, as well as for contacting experts in the fields of organ restoration and room acoustics to solicit expertise in crafting a plan for the restoration of the instrument. If time, funds, and conditions surrounding the renovation of the auditorium permit, the plan would then be executed.

The supply of secure, clean sustainable energy is arguably the most important scientific, political, and social challenge facing humanity in the 21st century. This team of students would like to see the University of Rochester join the small number of universities that have dedicated themselves to formulating a comprehensive solution to this problem. As such, URVIE will lay the groundwork for a subsequent, larger initiative by centralizing and cultivating existing faculty research interests in energy in order to offer faculty members a convenient way of reviewing the energy-specific research interests of their colleagues students a list of energy-related, faculty-sponsored projects. To create URVIE, these students will create a searchable website to present information compiled from a faculty survey, obtain a source of funding for faculty and student research projects, and create an annual colloquium, speaker series and other events. At year’s end, a report of the group’s accomplishments and recommendations will be submitted to the appropriate University office(s).

In 1930, the University installed a set of 17 bells in the Rush Rhees Library Tower, which were replaced by a set of 50 bells in 1973. Throughout the years, the Hopeman Memorial Carillon has continuously added to the ambiance of University life: we used to have a resident university carilloneur who played for all university occasions, gave several non-time concerts each week, taught carillon lessons, and advised a student carillon society. Recently, due to our cold, unforgiving winters, several bells could not stand the pressure and snapped, causing the music to cease. Jeff proposes to research the history and use of the carillon at the University of Rochester, the function and functioning of carillons at other institutions of higher education in the US, the financial support for the carillon, past student and alumni involvement and support, possible areas of cooperation between the College Music Department and the Eastman School of Music’s organ department with respect to the carillon, and the national organizations and musical repertory dedicated to the instrument.

Through classes and internship in marketing, entrepreneurship and media analysis, Nicole plans to develop a manual and training module that outlines effective procedures for publicizing events that come to the University of Rochester campus. The manual and training sessions will outline different marketing strategies classified according to size and type of event, available funds, resources and manpower. Through the KEY Program, Nicole hopes to transform the need for expanded promotion on campus to an effective model for groups to consult when planning publicity for their events.

In the presence of the sick, can music decrease anxiety caused by surgery and later, shorten the recovery time? Is there a chemical change that occurs among subjects who feel more “relaxed” when listening to a certain type of music? Aedan Coffey and Glenn Goldman are interested in understanding music’s impact on psychological health and development, and as such, plan to work to increase the awareness of opportunities in the study, research and practical application of music therapy at the University of Rochester. Their goal is to build the lasting foundations for a Music and Medicine Program at Strong Hospital.

The future of an important Rochester landmark, SS. Peter and Paul’s Parish, is in danger of being lost, and Andrew has devised an idea that will ensure it remains a positive influence within the surrounding neighborhood. This beautiful Romanesque church, which is slated to be closed by the Catholic diocese and sold, would make an excellent performance hall and arts center. Andrew’s interests in Italian art and culture and contemporary American urban problems form the nexus that drives his desire to study the problems of preservation and urban revitalization. Along the way, he hopes to learn about politics, community activism, social problems, art and architecture, and historic preservation.

This proposal aims to create a start-up online company whose goal is to provide a medium for exchanging computer deals through user-submitted content in addition to generating revenue through advertising. The company will act as a facilitator for other users to spread the news about any type of deal that they find online. Deals will also be monitored by the users through a voting scheme so that better deals will be most visible on the site.

The Republic of Ghana may be on the verge of positioning itself within the middle to upper range of developing nations during the next half-century. Through his hands-on study of entrepreneurship and its contribution to the growth and development of Ghana’s economy since 1990 as well as the future of entrepreneurship in Ghana, M-T plans to research the answers to these questions: • If that happens, what must be done? • What political moves have been or need to be made? • What economic conditions need to exist? • What role does entrepreneurship play in the growth and development of nations? Upon his return from Ghana, M-T is committed to creating opportunities for other UR students to experience entrepreneurship within a realistic international setting such as Ghana, and to working with his adviser to create a new course studying the politics surrounding entrepreneurship.

CampusCurrent is a web service which connects college students to opportunities on and around campus. The opportunities will be created by the users of the service. Students can then log in to the service to find everything they can do on campus, with recommendations to help them find what they need. A team of four KEY students is working together to program and develop the service; market the product; and develop relationships with business and University contacts. After establishing a connected campus at the University of Rochester, the team plans to network with other local colleges to supply this service to them.

Entrepreneurship and medicine both struggle to satisfy the customer whether he or she is buying a product or seeking health care. As with a business, people in the health field can utilize entrepreneurial processes to find new solutions to social issues, for example, the issues of health care accessibility and insurance. The United States utilizes both socialized health care and private health insurance, and she believes that the benefits of each system can be integrated to provide a better system. Therefore, Jung has proposed to dive into a full year of research investigating newly developing health care systems. This research will culminate with a focus on Rochester’s health care system to study how the theories she investigated can be applied locally.

Why are there fewer female entrepreneurs? What is it about entrepreneurship that attracts men to the challenge, but discourages women from taking part? Is the reasoning embedded in our culture, or are men simply more inclined to pursue self-management? Darcey spent a year studying human behavior and the inner workings of entrepreneurship to find answers to some of these questions. While her proposed program will never transform into a fiscal enterprise, she believes that developing an understanding for the reasoning behind the lack of female entrepreneurs is valuable information. With the experience gained from spending the Summer of 2005 studying data on female entrepreneurs at the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, her work will open doors to the possibility of creating courses to motivate and inspire future University of Rochester students, especially women, to successfully pursue self-management and entrepreneurship.

Originally, Patrick was going to start an organic produce market within the University’s dining system. The current focus of his project has extended to include sustainability reforms to the entire dining system, including that of Aramark, the company that manages our dining system. The organic produce market has become just a piece of an overall plan to integrate local and organic foods into the whole dining program.

With the goal of creating greater appreciation and increased audiences for art music in live performance, Dan will develop a plan for educational programs and performing arts at the University of Rochester. These events will reach out beyond the walls of conservatories and music schools to target non-music students, particularly students who do not normally attend concerts.