UAA honors 2018 INNOVATE Award winners and Patent Wall of Fame inductees

The University of Alaska Anchorage is pleased to announce that 10 projects have been selected to receive a 2018 INNOVATE Award. The awards are designed to inspire faculty research, entrepreneurship and creative activity that will lead to publication, external research funding and/or intellectual property rights.

Vice Provost for Research and Graduate Studies Dr. Helena Wisniewski initiated the award program, opening the application process in the fall of 2011 with the support of former Chancellor Tom Case and then Provost Mike Driscoll. Since the first awards were issued in 2012, the program has provided seed funding for more than 65 projects, with 10 new ones this year, across most disciplines at UAA. Project areas include business and public policy, health and biomedical sciences, sciences, engineering, education, sociology, arts, English and psychology.

According to Wisniewski, the awards have a better than 6-to-1 return on investment to the university from externally funded grants acquired by researchers who received INNOVATE funding to develop their work and proposal submissions.

This year's winning projects include:

Timing and rate of exhumation along the Ross Lake fault zone, North Cascades, WA Erin Shea, UAA Geological Sciences and Jeff Benowitz, UAF Geophysical Institute

High-resolution water depth modeling using remotely sensed imagery Caixia Wang, UAA Geomatics

Innovative soil frost-heave characterization system Lin Li and Joey Yang, UAA Civil Engineering

Evaluating dietary patterns of a threatened small mammal species and an indicator species through a novel genetic approach Paul Schuette, UAA Alaska Center for Conservation Science

Understanding the corrosion behavior of magnesium alloy inside the crevices Raghu Srinivasan and Matthew Cullin, UAA Mechanical Engineering

Snow cover in Alaska: Exploratory cluster analysis Gennady Gienko, UAA Geomatics; Rob Lang and Thomas Folan (graduate student), UAA Civil Engineering

Synthesis of drug conjugated carboxyborane for use as carbon monoxide releasing and drug delivery molecule Thep Ayudhya, UAA Chemistry

Sea monsters threaten the beaches: An interactive pop-up book Herminia Din, UAA Art

Creation of an immunoassay to picolinic acid herbicides Mark McCoy and Patrick Tomco, UAA Chemistry

Consumer choice and preference for "Alaska Grown" foods: Elicitation, information, learning and valuation Angie Zheng and Jonathan Alevy, UAA Economics, Bogdan Hoanca, UAA Information Systems and Decision Sciences and Zhifeng Gao, University of Florida

In addition to this year's winning INNOVATE projects, four projects have also been awarded U.S. patents. Their inventors will be inducted into UAA's Patent Wall of Fame, developed by Wisniewski. Since 2011, 52 patent applications have been filed on behalf of UAA faculty and students, and 11 patents have been issued, 40 percent of which were a direct result of inventors receiving INNOVATE Award funding to develop their inventions.

The newest inductees and their inventions include:

Surgical Cutting Device and Methods of Using Same, U.S. Patent 9,636,134 B2 Samuel Werner developed this technology and applied for a patent while still a student in UAA's WWAMI School of Medical Education. Now a physician, Werner is completing his residency at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Ophthalmology and Vision Science. His device will pass easily through tissues to form more precise incisions during eye surgery to avoid significant tissue damage and result in more rapid healing and recovery for the patient.

Vehicle Accessory Engagement Tracking, U.S. Patent 9,715,369 B2 Timothy Menard, now based in Sunnyvale, Calif., developed this technology and applied for a patent while an undergraduate student at UAA. He received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from UAA and is the founder and current CEO of SinWaves Inc., a company managing traffic signal operation through the marriage of cloud computation and vehicle connectivity. Menard's co-inventors are Dr. Jeffrey Miller, professor, College of Engineering, and John Lund.

Systems and Methods for Heating Concrete Structures, U.S. Patent 9,829,202 Joey Yang, UAA civil engineering professor, developed this invention with colleagues from the Lower 48. The unique system uses carbon fiber tape to keep surfaces (i.e. walkways, and roads) free of ice and snow, even during a storm. Yang's co-inventors are Ting Yang, Mithun Singla, Gangbing Song and Christiana Chang. Read more about its development.

Self-Heated Enclosure with Carbon Fiber, U.S. Patent 9,829,203 Joey Yang, UAA civil engineering professor, developed this technology for a smarter alternative to the usual fan-driven electric heaters used to heat enclosures that protect sensitive equipment. Yang's co-inventor is graduate student Benjamin Still.

The awardees will be honored at the seventh annual INNOVATE Awards Ceremony on Friday, Jan. 26, 2018, along with the newest inductees to the UAA Patent Wall of Fame.

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