The spaces, redesigned over the past several months through a grant from office furniture manufacturer Steelcase, were celebrated on Sept. 9, 2026, with a ribbon-cutting led by the �鶹��Ƶ administrative and student team that helped bring the vision to life.

“It’s really an amazing opportunity for our team, our students, and our campus, and we hope that the things that we learn from this space will carry into other learning spaces across campus,” said Professor Jessie Moore, director of the Center for Engaged Learning at �鶹��Ƶ and a co-leader of the initiative.

The project began early this year with a design session that brought together undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff. �鶹��Ƶ two-thirds of participating students identified as neurodivergent, while others were interested in supporting neurodivergent peers.

Participants reviewed existing research on neuroaffirming spaces and identified characteristics that could make learning environments more inclusive. Students used library floor plans to sketch how those principles could be incorporated into the spaces.

Priorities included psychological safety, greater control over lighting and surroundings, different sensory experiences and separate zones for collaboration and quiet individual work.

Steelcase worked with �鶹��Ƶ’s Office of Planning, Design, and Construction Management to translate those ideas into potential designs. Students provided feedback on furniture, colors, seating arrangements and other features. Several additional rounds of feedback followed before furniture installed over the summer.

The redesign focused on two areas of Belk Library.

On the second floor, a lounge and three adjoining study rooms were redesigned, with each study room offering a different configuration. Features include varied seating and dimmable floor lamps that provide alternatives to overhead lighting.

On the third floor, an area known as “The Treehouse” offers a different experience. Overlooking trees and green space facing the Inman Admissions Welcome Center, the quieter area uses earth tones, creams and fabrics intended to connect with the natural environment. The redesign replaced large study carrels with a wider variety of seating styles and textures while increasing the area’s overall seating capacity.

“I’ve long supported neurodivergent students through accessible space design,” said Professor Caroline Ketcham, associate dean of �鶹��Ƶ College, the College of Arts and Sciences, and a co-leader of the project with Moore. “It’s exciting to create spaces where textures, lighting and desk heights can be adjusted to meet individuals’ needs. This work makes it possible for people to thrive in environments they can use in ways that work best for them.”

It’s exciting to create spaces where textures, lighting and desk heights can be adjusted to meet individuals’ needs. This work makes it possible for people to thrive in environments they can use in ways that work best for them.

– Professor Caroline Ketcham, associate dean of �鶹��Ƶ College, the College of Arts and Sciences

Marisa Sergnese, an applied research and learning consultant at Steelcase Learning, attended the ribbon-cutting and praised the �鶹��Ƶ team that helped bring about the redesigned library spaces.

“At Steelcase, we use a human-centered design approach,” Sergnese said. “Observation, research, prototyping, and the iterative process allows us to collect insights so that we can learn what we need to respond to emerging forces in education. That’s the core of everything that we do, and to do that, it was really important for us to find a partner that was as interested in this topic as we are.”

With installation complete, the project now moves into its research phase.

Faculty and student researchers will observe how people use and rearrange the spaces and gather feedback through surveys, interviews and focus groups. Because some furniture can be easily moved, researchers said they are particularly interested in whether students modify the original configurations to better meet their needs.

The team is also developing tools to assess how successfully learning environments incorporate the neuroaffirming design principles identified during the project. Findings will be shared with Steelcase and could help inform future spaces at �鶹��Ƶ and elsewhere.

Steelcase has offered to support student co-researchers in presenting findings at conferences.

Ben Krasnow and Kaz Kelly, both members of the Class of 2027, will continue working on the research during the coming academic year. They and Kira Campagna, a 2026 graduate, participated as Center for Engaged Learning Student Scholars studying neuroaffirming engaged learning.

Viral myocarditis is a potentially serious condition in which a viral infection triggers excessive inflammation that damages the heart. When the body detects the virus, it activates an immediate defense system called the innate immune response. That response is necessary for controlling the infection, but if it is too strong, lasts too long or occurs at the wrong time; the resulting inflammation can also damage heart tissue. Their project seeks to understand why the immune response sometimes protects the heart and, at other times, contributes to injury.

A mathematical model allows Ryu and Rivera-Serrano to create a simplified, virtual representation of what is happening inside the infected heart in ways that are currently impossible to achieve using biology and experiments alone. They will use equations to describe how the amount of virus changes over time, how different heart and immune cells respond, how those cells communicate through signaling molecules, and how those interactions influence inflammation and tissue damage.

“Our goal is to develop a mathematical model that integrates several biological processes occurring during viral myocarditis, including viral replication, infection and death of heart muscle cells, activation of antiviral defenses, recruitment of immune cells, inflammatory signaling and longer-term tissue damage,” said Ryu, associate professor of mathematics.

This will be a highly interdisciplinary project. Ryu, as a principal investigator, will lead the development, simulation and mathematical analysis of the model, while Rivera-Serrano, as a co-principal investigator, will provide expertise in virology, cell biology and innate immunity and will lead the experimental component.

“The mathematical and laboratory work will inform one another—experimental findings will help us make the model more biologically realistic, while predictions from the model will help us decide which biological interactions and hypotheses should be tested in the laboratory with undergraduate researchers here at �鶹��Ƶ,” Ryu said.

The project combines computational research, led by Ryu, with hands-on laboratory experiments, led by Rivera-Serrano.

“In the laboratory, we will grow heart and immune cells to examine how viral infection changes the behavior and biochemical signals produced and received by these distinct cell types,” Rivera-Serrano said. “We will measure outcomes such as viral infection and replication, cell survival or death, and the production of antiviral and inflammatory signaling molecules”.

These experiments will provide currently unavailable data that can be incorporated into the mathematical model and used to evaluate whether the model accurately reflects biological behavior. The process will also work in the other direction: if the model predicts that a particular cell type, signaling molecule or time point has an especially strong effect on inflammation, they can design experiments to test that prediction. Rather than treating the laboratory and mathematical components as separate projects, Ryu and Rivera-Serrano see them as a continuous feedback loop.

This research is important because the body needs a strong enough response to control the virus, but excessive or prolonged inflammation can weaken the heart, interfere with its electrical activity, and contribute to heart failure or other serious complications. Although many aspects of viral myocarditis have been studied, it remains difficult to understand how the different cardiac and immune cells communicate and how their interactions collectively shape disease progression over time.

“By combining mathematical modeling with laboratory experiments, we can gain insights into the immune response that neither approach could achieve independently,” Ryu said. “This allows us to integrate existing knowledge, identify the most influential biological mechanisms, and determine which questions are the most important to investigate experimentally. Ultimately, our goal is to provide researchers with a better roadmap for understanding when inflammation is protective and when it begins to damage the heart. That knowledge could guide future studies aimed at developing safer and more effective treatments for viral myocarditis.”

By the end of the project, Ryu and Rivera-Serrano hope to have developed and experimentally evaluated a mathematical framework that explains how viral replication, antiviral immunity, inflammatory signaling, and communication among heart and immune cells shape the progression of viral myocarditis.

Undergraduate research will be a central component to this project. Students from biology, mathematics, engineering and related STEM disciplines will be able to contribute according to their interests and expertise while also learning how researchers communicate and collaborate across disciplinary boundaries.

Students may help review scientific literature, design the model, estimate biological parameters, write and analyze computer simulations, conduct cell biology and biochemical experiments, analyze experimental data and compare laboratory findings with model predictions. They will also gain experience communicating their work through research presentations, national conferences and scientific publications.

“A particularly valuable aspect of the project is that students will not be limited to one narrow role,” Rivera-Serrano said. “A biology student may learn how experimental observations are converted into equations, while a mathematics or engineering student may learn how assumptions in a model correspond to actual cellular processes. Learning to communicate across disciplines is one of the most valuable skills students can develop for today’s biomedical research, where many important problems require expertise from multiple fields.”

Housed within the School of Health Sciences, Start Early in Medicine nurtures academic and career interests among children in the Alamance-Burlington School System. It is a community-based program structured to support students that are traditionally underrepresented in the health sciences.

Through immersive, hands-on learning in anatomy, physiology, 3D modeling, and research, since 2021, Start Early in Medicine has served more than 300 youth – many of whom live in predominantly Black and Hispanic communities – guided by mentorship from �鶹��Ƶ PA students and faculty.

The new funding will expand medically based STEM curriculum, strengthen research mentorship, and deepen community partnerships. It will also foster continued collaboration among School of Health Sciences faculty, students, and other departments and programs across the university.

“We’re grateful to the Burroughs Wellcome Fund for supporting the next phase of SEIM’s development,” Moore said. “This award allows us to continue creating early pathways for young learners to imagine themselves in science and health professions.”

Faculty across departments secured funding from major agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, British Association of American Studies, American Council of Learned Societies, Mathematical Association of American and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others.

“We put this event together because often grant writing is invisible labor. Faculty are doing grant work in the cracks of the days, early in the mornings and late at night,” said Hilton Kelly, dean of �鶹��Ƶ College, the College of Arts and Sciences. “To those who received a grant or is writing one, we want them to know that we see them, know their work and support their efforts.”

The reception honored not only successful award recipients but also the investment in time, collaboration and innovation involved in developing grant proposals.

The Office of Sponsored Programs provides essential guidance and resources to help faculty navigate the proposal process, identify funding opportunities and strengthen applications.

“Faculty are always looking to push beyond where we are with research,” said Dana Clar, director, Office of Sponsored Programs. “The work our faculty are doing through grants is cutting edge, and it’s not done just in a lab.

“When faculty get grants, they almost always include undergraduates as part of their research team. Exposure to research in any fashion makes our students better at critical thinking and exposes them to the world outside of the classroom. When people get external grants, they are growing future leaders.”

Sirena Hargrove-Leak, professor of engineering, received funding from the National Science Foundation for Supporting Undergraduates from Community College to Excel and Succeed in STEM, a grant project aimed at creating programming to help Alamance Community College students transfer to �鶹��Ƶ to pursue a bachelor’s degree in STEM.

Hargrove-Leak and her co-principal investigator, Jennifer Hamel, associate professor of biology, worked on the grant for four years before it was successfully funded as a planning grant with Jessica Merricks, associate professor of biology, as the evaluator.

“The most challenging part of seeking a grant is that it requires persistence because it is rare that you have a successfully funded project on the first try,” Hargrove-Leak said. “It is a process of learning, growing and adapting. Then there is the joy of receiving a grant, which makes it all worth it.”

The Office of Sponsored Programs works with faculty and staff in advancing research and scholarship through expert guidance on finding funding opportunities, crafting proposals, securing external funding, managing awards and ensuring compliance with policies.

The goal of this project is to create an open-source model for developing research data infrastructure for small Emerging Research Institutions (ERIs) who aspire to grow their research enterprise from both sponsored programs and research productivity perspectives. Project objectives include: 1) Creating interactive tools like a Research Publications Dashboard and a Sponsored Programs Dashboard for informed decision-making, 2) Developing a Forecasting Model to predict institutional return on investment through sponsored programs, and 3) Providing customizable tools for adapting the open-source data model. The design will integrate with the institution’s existing databases, providing a comprehensive view of research productivity and funding activities.

An open-source model reduces start-up costs and technical skill requirements, benefiting small ERIs. Data output from the dashboards will be incorporated into the forecasting model, integrating historical data and real-time inputs. Unlike generic models, this forecasting model is specifically designed to address the unique challenges and opportunities faced by small ERIs. The model will be created by University of San Diego and then validated through partnerships with peer institutions (�鶹��Ƶ and Pepperdine University), ensuring credibility and knowledge sharing. It is designed to be scalable and adaptable, supporting long-term strategic planning and aligning research priorities with funding trends.

Doug Purnell and Scott Sawyer will be working with Hall on this project.

• Dollar General provided $3,000 to create 100 summer reading kits, each filled with books to help students continue their growth and learning over the extended break.
• The Alamance Community Foundation contributed $5,000 to support Engineering in the Village, an innovative outreach initiative led by Sirena Hargrove-Leak and Blake Hament. This funding will sustain the program through the 2025–26 school year, providing hands-on STEM learning experiences for students.
• A second award from Dollar General for $4,000 will make possible the annual end-of-semester Book Bash, where ITAV tutoring students receive new books to take home and enjoy.
• Impact Alamance granted $6,000 to purchase two Unicom Mini Interpretation Systems, which will ensure families can fully engage in parent workshops, information sessions, and focus groups. By breaking down language barriers, these systems will make parent programs more inclusive and accessible for all participants.
• LabCorp awarded $7,376, further supporting Engineering in the Village for the 2025–26 school year and expanding opportunities for students to explore engineering concepts in engaging, real-world contexts.

These grants were secured through the collaborative efforts of the Center’s team, including the leadership of Laura Clemmons, assistant director of the Center for Access & Success and lead for the It Takes a Village programs, and Sydney Gilbert, family engagement, fundraising, and evaluation coordinator, who worked together to develop the successful grant applications.

Together, these awards strengthen the mission of ITAV: fostering a love of learning, expanding access to educational resources, and building connections between students, families, and the broader community.

Dean of the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business and Professor of Management Information Systems, Haya Ajjan, received a grant of $102,175 from Cone Health. The funds will support ten Master of Business Analytics (MSBA) students through paid internships, emphasizing the need for inclusion and professional development in healthcare analytics.

This initiative aligns with Cone Health’s mission of community engagement and innovation, while addressing the critical need for diverse perspectives in data-driven decision-making. By providing financial support across two semesters, this program will reduce barriers for students, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds, offering them invaluable experience in real-world analytics.

MSBA students, equipped with expertise in tools like Python, Tableau, and GenAI, will contribute to key projects at Cone Health, such as predictive modeling, operational optimization and data visualization. These internships not only enhance Cone Health’s capabilities by leveraging cutting-edge analytics but also establish a cost-effective talent pipeline. Supporting this program reflects Cone Health’s commitment to fostering inclusion, empowering future leaders and driving impactful improvements in healthcare operations and patient outcomes.

Cathy Quay, associate professor of nursing and department chair/program director for the Department of Nursing, received a grant from the North Carolina Area Health Education Centers for $14,285 to fund the �鶹��Ƶ Clinical Site Development project.

In this project, nursing students enrolled in “Population and Community Health” will be placed at several clinical sites. These students are in either the second semester of their third year in the traditional four-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program or in the third semester of the four-semester accelerated BSN program.

The purpose of this project is to enhance nursing education by integrating experiential learning opportunities that prepare students to address health equity and disparities in underserved communities. Through strategic partnerships with community health clinics in Alamance and Caswell Counties, the initiative will provide nursing students with hands-on experience, support CHC staff through preceptor training and strengthen academic-practice collaboration to improve healthcare outcomes.

Her work focuses on her desire to empower, uplift and heal marginalized communities. These grant funds will provide travel to the ACPA conference, where she will present a pre-convention workshop, developed with a senior scholar, that supports the work of those in identity centers. Additionally, she plans to submit an article to Developments – ACPA’s quarterly online publication – based on her research working with identity center practitioners of Color.

Pagnapech Ngoun ’26, an engineering major, presented her collaborative research in a poster titled, “ Mathematical Modeling of COVID-19 Reveals Immune Cell Dysfunction.” Their research represents recent findings based on a new mathematical model that accounts for the interaction between SARS-CoV-2 and the human immune system. Her research team is mentored by Associate Professor Hwayeon Ryu, who also contributed as a judge in the undergraduate poster session. Their work has been supported by the  (under PI Ryu).

In the invited paper session “Trends in Mathematical and Computational Biology” organized by SIGMAA on Mathematical and Computational Biology, Ryu also delivered her oral presentation on her NSF-funded project.