Current Board of Governors for the Society of Self Fellows: (Elections for the Board of Governors takes place every spring.)
Nikki Johnson, Ph.D. Board: 2021-2025 President
Ted Harris, Ph.D. Board: 2022-2026
Molly McVey, Ph,D., P.Eng Board: 2023-2027
Cassidy Philips, Ph,D. Board: 2024-2028
If at any time you have personal or professional news you would like included in the newsletter, please submit your updates to SGF@ku.edu. News does not have to be about significant changes. The Society would enjoy hearing regular updates, including employment milestones, continuing research on an ongoing project, etc. Please also share email and mailing address updates to ensure our communication reaches you.
Nadia Alissa, Ph.D., (2018-2022 fellow) started a new position as Scientist I at Catalent Pharma Solutions in November 2024.
Isaac Allred, Ph.D., (2016-2020 fellow), welcomed his fourth child. He and his wife now have two girls and two boys. Additionally he served as a delegate at the 37th International Geological Congress in Busan, South Korea last year.
Mark Bailey, Ph.D., (2006-2010 fellow), recently published a book, Unknowable Minds, which was released February 4, 2025. Additionally, he was recently promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army Reserve. Here is the book link: Unknowable Minds
Grant Downes, Ph.D., (2020-2024 fellow), aside from getting married, successfully defended his dissertation in early December. Following the December graduation, he accepted a full-time Venture Fellow position at BioGenerator Ventures in Saint Louis, MO. He has since moved to Saint Louis with his wife and they are eating our way through the restaurant scene here. As a member of the Human Health team at BioGenerator, he is focused on helping craft, evaluate, and support current Saint Louis-based companies in the digital health, diagnostics, medical device, and therapeutics spaces. In addition, he is working on developing company concepts and newly-formed ventures in these spaces.
Kara Hageman, Ph.D., (2020-2024 fellow), accepted a job as a senior scientist for Medtronic on their pain intervention team in Minneapolis, MN. The job will be helping represent one of their implantable drug delivery devices as well as
interventional therapies for back pain. She will get to talk with doctors and discuss what they are seeing with their patients while also being on the translational research side and helping with many projects on di erent therapies.
Molly McVey , Ph.D. (2006-2010 fellow), moved back to Lawrence in July 2024 after three years at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. She is now at KU in the Mechanical Engineering department in an assistant teaching professor role. Molly is currently teaching numerical methods, environmental life cycle assessment for design, and experimentation and measurement. She nds it to be an honor and pleasure to be teaching in the department and with faculty that shaped my academic career and who she looks up to so much. Her three boys are growing up fast- ages 14, 11, and 9. They are a joy most of the time and keep her humble. She’s loving being back in Lawrence close to family and friends!
Elizabeth Smith, Ph.D., (1995-1999 fellow), accepted a new position in March. Although she is still at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, she moved from the "Environment" side of the agency (Bureau of Water) to the "Health" side (Bureau of Epidemiology and Public Health Informatics). As the State Public Health Entomologist, her focus is on the ecology and geographic distributions of ticks, mosquitoes, and other disease-carrying arthropods. Under the One Health framework, which is built on the relationships between human health, animal health, and the environment, she works with epidemiologists, veterinarians, natural resource managers, and others toward the goal of reducing the incidence of vector borne diseases in Kansas.
Tuesday, March 11: Book Club Conversation with Author Germaine Halegoua
See page 6.
Thursday, April 24 & Friday, April 25, 2025 Lawrence, KS
More details to come in the spring.
Lawrence, KS
The Symposium is the annual celebratory event for the fellowship.
Thursday, April 24
3:30-5:15p.m. Networking Reception and Alumni Career Panel
5:30p.m. Fourth Year Fellow and Society of Self Fellows Welcome Dinner
Friday, April 25
Networking Reception and Alumni Career Panel – Enjoy a networking opportunity for Society of Self Fellows and Self Graduate Fellows over drinks and appetizers, followed by a panel featuring several Society of Self Fellows who will discuss their careers and current topics within this year’s public policy theme, community infrastructure policy.
VIP Meet and Greet - A private event for the Society of Self Fellows and Self Graduate Fellows to meet keynote speaker, Noelle Russell.
Poster Presentation - Current Self Graduate Fellows will present about their work in a passive research display.
Reception and Dinner – Enjoy a cocktail hour and plated dinner celebrating the Self Graduate Fellowship, outgoing 2021-2025 Fellows, and current SSF Board of Governors.
RSVP: https://bit.ly/41cm0wq
Noelle Russell is regarded among the most authoritative voices on how we can create a world where ai and humans coexist harmoniously, where innovation is a force for good, and where progress knows no bounds. With a profound passion for technology and its potential to transform business and society, Noelle Russell has dedicated her career to helping organizations uncover the possibilities arti cial intelligence presents to their businesses and guiding them through the intricacies of AI adoption.
In her daily work Russell advises companies across industries on how to integrate emerging technologies — including AI, Web3, and the Cloud — into their operations and workplace strategies. She is an award-winning technologist with an entrepreneurial spirit who has led innovative tech teams at Accenture, NPR, Microsoft, IBM, AWS, and Amazon Alexa, and is among the world’s leading voices on data and AI literacy.
Among her accolades, Russell has recently been honored with the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award for Arti cial Intelligence, as well as VentureBeat’s Women in AI Responsibility and Ethics award. In 2023, she was named one of DCA Live’s “New Power Women of DC Tech” and one of the Association of Latino Professionals for America’s “Latinas to Watch.” Additionally, Russell is the founder and chief AI o cer at AI Leadership Institute. The institute o ers advisory services and workshops for de ning generative AI strategy, creating AI-ready cultures, and establishing responsible AI practices within organizations.
Friday, April 25 3:30p.m.
Big 12 Room, Kansas Union, Level 5
The Society of Self Fellows book club provides the Society and current Fellows with engaging conversation and learning around the shared experience of a book.
Request a FREE copy of the book: If you would like to request a copy of Smart Cities, use this linked form.
Request book: https://bit.ly/3Oi3wEH
Save the Date: On Tuesday, March 11 at 12:00p.m. CST, join us for a virtual conversation with author Germaine Halegoua, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Communication and Media, University of Michigan.
About Smart Cities: Over the past ten years, urban planners, technology companies, and governments have promoted smart cities with a somewhat utopian vision of urban life made knowable and manageable through data collection and analysis. Emerging smart cities have become both crucibles and showrooms for the practical application of the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and the integration of big data into everyday life. Are smart cities optimized, sustainable, digitally networked solutions to urban problems? Or are they neoliberal, corporate-controlled, undemocratic non-places?
After reviewing current terminology and justifications employed by technology designers, journalists, and researchers, the book describes three models for smart city development—smart-from-the-start cities, retrofitted cities, and social cities—and offers examples of each. It covers technologies and methods, including sensors, public wi-fi, big data, and smartphone apps, and discusses how developers conceive of interactions among the built environment, technological and urban infrastructures, citizens, and citizen engagement. Throughout, the author—who has studied smart cities around the world—argues that smart city developers should work more closely with local communities, recognizing their preexisting relationship to urban place and realizing the limits of technological fixes. Smartness is a means to an end: improving the quality of urban life.
About Germaine Halegoua, Ph.D.: Germaine Halegoua’s research interests focus on the relationships between people, place, and digital media. In particular, she’s interested in how visions of digital media by public officials and urban planners often conflict with popular imaginations and everyday experiences of digital technologies and infrastructures. Her more recent projects investigate digital placemaking; smart cities; cultural geographies and inequities of digital infrastructure and access; social media in neighborhood contexts; and social productions of place and identity online. Dr. Halegoua is the John D. Evans Development Professor & Associate Professor of Communication and Media at the University of Michigan and previously was an assistant professor at KU.
The Self Graduate Fellows attended the annual Spring Skill Session on January 13-17, 2025.
The program included workshops on intellectual property, personal nance, oral and written communication coaching, and evaluating new businesses. Students practiced seminar presentations, public presentations, and job talks.
The week also included a eld trip to the White House Decision Center and Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri, where the students completed a simulation on ending the war with Japan.
The week also included workshops by three Society of Self Fellows. The students greatly enjoyed the opportunity to learn from program alumni. If you have an idea for a Skill Session workshop within the donor themes of communication, management, innovation, and leadership, email SGF@ku.edu.
Andrea Freeymyer, Ph.D. (2013-2017 fellow)
Jaime Gassman, Ph.D. (2002-2006 fellow)
Following voting last week, Eileen Cadel, Ph.D., (2014-2018 Fellow) is the newest member of the Board of Governors.
Eileen has over a decade of experience working in the medical device industry. Her expertise is in regulatory a airs, spine biomechanics, product development, mechanical testing, and translational research. Currently, she is a Team Lead and scienti c reviewer in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health at the FDA. In her current role, she reviews orthopedic and spinal devices to evaluate their safety and e ectiveness
both before and after marketing. She also supports and mentors members on her Team and provides supervisory oversight and concurrence to ensure her Team’s work products are scienti cally accurate and administratively complete.
In 2018, Eileen earned her Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Kansas where she performed research in the Spine Biomechanics Laboratory focused on product design and development. She is also an alumna of the University of Virginia, where she received a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering. Eileen is a self-proclaimed “foodie” and home cook who enjoys making everything from ravioli to gyoza. She also enjoys team trivia and loves cheering for her favorite sports teams, including the Jayhawks!
