Innovation abundant on campus
Helen Nowotnik
Issue date: 3/11/11 Section: News
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Inspired by President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech, the subject of the work will be Innovation at Drexel.
"When he talked about innovation I said, 'Well we are sitting in the heart of innovation,' from [an] engineering standpoint to entertainment. There are a number of national and international endeavors that students and professors have developed, and each student has taken on an aspect of innovation and is writing an essay for it," Simons said.
The student projects illustrate the development of the barcode, the entertainment group Chiddy Bang, the "Fall In Love with Your Subaru" campaign, cool roofing and the Drexel Smart House, all innovations developed by Drexel students and faculty.
"Innovation is alive and well at Drexel," Simons said.
Steven Doll, a freshman majoring in molecular biology, focused his project on a method developed at Drexel for detecting cardio-allograft rejection, better known as organ transplant rejection.
"I believe this method defines "innovation," as it improves upon a discovery made nearly a century ago," Doll said.
The students interviewed various members from the Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship and the engineering librarian to include in their papers.
Jay Bhatt, engineering librarian at Hagerty Library, said, "Simons had told me about her plans of teaching and thinking innovation in her English class several weeks back. She is always eager and keen on encouraging students to try out new things so that they enhance critical thinking skills."
According to Bhatt, Drexel has several student organizations, such as Drexel Engineers without Borders, the IEEE student chapter and the Drexel Smart House, where students are encouraged to work on innovative research projects. Students in these projects develop innovative and critical thinking skills as well as learn to work together as a group.
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