Michigan League earns top Wedding Spot honor
University Union’s Michigan League has won the 2016 Outdoor Venue Award by Wedding Spot, an online wedding publication. Wedding Spot showcases more than 8,000 national venues that millions of couples compare for price and services. Awards criteria include the number of online clicks made, site tour appointments requested, price estimates created and weddings booked for each venue on the Wedding Spot website. According to award representatives, the Michigan League was chosen because it “provides current students, alumni and staff members with a breathtaking setting for a romantic big day.” In addition to a venue for all types of social or business occasions, the Michigan League provides full-service catering via MCatering. For more information, visit uunions.umich.edu/league.
Projects sought for biomedical innovations to improve patient care
The U-M Coulter Translational Research Partnership Program is pleased to announce the 2017 Call for Proposals. The deadline for proposal submission is Feb. 3, 2017. The Coulter Program funds translational research projects between College of Engineering and clinical faculty co-investigators. These projects aim to de-risk new medical devices, clinical diagnostics, and other biomedical product concepts, and lead to investments for full development and commercialization by strategic corporate partners or venture capital funded startup companies. For more information and application instructions, visit: bme.umich.edu/research/coulter/process/apply/. For questions, please contact Thomas Marten, Coulter Program director, at tmarten@umich.edu or 734-647-1680.
$800K in research awards aim to address data science
Four research teams from U-M and Shanghai Jiao Tong University are sharing $800,000 in awards to study depression, electric vehicles, urban green space and bone cancer. Since 2010, the two universities have collaborated on a number of research projects that address challenges and opportunities in energy, biomedicine, nanotechnology and data science. In the latest round of annual grants, the winning projects focus on data science and how it can be used to sustain critical infrastructures for the environment and human health. “We are excited to see a strong group of new faculty teams now venture into joint research with a data science focus, exploring new directions in an international context,” said Volker Sick, associate vice president for research — natural sciences and engineering. The program funds projects that have commercial potential and are likely to attract follow-on research funding from the United States and Chinese governments, as well as industry. To read about this year’s projects, go to: myumi.ch/JdRYB.
U-M’s chief information security officer talks cybersecurity and our campuses
Data breaches and cyberattacks seem like a permanent part of the news cycle. They have even become presidential debate fodder. How do we separate the hype from reality? October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. In an interview, Don Welch, U-M’s chief information security officer, talks about raising the bar on protecting the institution’s data and information systems, and why it’s more critical now than ever. Read the full story at myumi.ch/LB3Yg.
Center for Entrepreneurship receives $200K for tech-to-market program
With the aim of further establishing Michigan as a leading state for high-tech companies, the Michigan Strategic Fund has approved extended funding for its “Train the Trainers,” a program managed by U-M’s Center for Entrepreneurship. Aided by a grant of approximately $200,000, the program will train entrepreneurs, researchers and inventors while expanding the level of mentoring and teaching of commercialized strategies. The additional funding continues the two-year-old program and will allow institutions across Michigan to continue benefiting from the partnership with the CFE. The training works in partnership with the Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization program, which supports the acceleration of commercially viable, advanced applied material technologies developed by university researchers.
