INNOVATORS TO WATCH

Creating A Culture Of Discovery

UNT STUDENTS ARE LEARNING FIRSTHAND HOW THEIR INNOVATION CAN IMPACT MUSIC, SCIENCE AND EDUCATION.

Monitoring Bird Numbers

Tessa Boucher (’20), a master’s student in environmental science, is tracking how the North Texas Municipal Water District’s restoration of the 15,000-acre Riverby Ranch is changing the bird population there. Preliminary results have found the eforts have helped increase bird diversity — one of the indicators of success for a restoration project. A lover of animals, Boucher was originally on the path to become a veterinarian, but her undergraduate research on painted buntings with UNT principal lecturer James Bednarz at Lewisville Lake Environmental Learning Area made her realize she was passionate about working in ecosystem restoration. Her research has earned multiple awards from the Texas Society for Ecological Restoration.

Sustainable Tourism

Megan Kelly (’22 M.S.), a recent graduate of the international sustainable tourism master’s program, was inspired by her work as a fight attendant to be part of the solution in preserving travel destinations. Her graduate research focused on the Costa Rican destination image on Instagram and how to tie destination image to sustainable tourist behaviors. As a recipient of a Fulbright U.S. Student Program Award for 2022-23, Kelly will continue this research by looking at the impact social media and government policy have made on destination image and tourist behavior in Puerto Williams, Chile. Te results will provide data and strategies for tourism businesses to build pro-environmental behaviors and online communities to protect their delicate destinations.

POLITICS OF CHINESE HIP-HOP

Meng Ren, a doctoral ethnomusicology student, is documenting the evolution of Chinese hip-hop in her dissertation titled “Forbidden Sound: Te Art, Culture and Politics of Chinese HipHop,” the frst full-length work on this topic. Trough her research, Ren speaks to how hip-hop gives the marginalized a voice to express their political discontent through creative sound. Her contribution to music research earned her the 2021 Presser Foundation Graduate Scholar award as well as second place in UNT’s Tree-Minute Tesis (3MT®) competition. She plans to expand her research by exploring the preservation of Yunnan reggae and investigating music as a mode of healing.

Physiology Of The Heart

Percyval Seddoh, a teaching assistant and master’s student in biomedical engineering, is studying cardiovascular tissue engineering, with an emphasis on creating microscopic representations of the heart to model issues such as diseases and aging. His research is under the guidance of assistant professor of biomedical engineering Huaxiao Yang, whose lab is working to establish the next-generation tissue engineering system for modeling and treating cardiovascular diseases. Seddoh’s graduate research specifcally is focused on recreating the physiology of the human heart. In the future, he plans to become a neurosurgeon helping patients who have experienced traumatic brain injuries, strokes or anyone sufering from a rare neuronal disease.

Inclusive Pathways

Kenzie Duwe, an undergraduate integrative studies major with concentrations in rehabilitation studies, sociology and education, has been researching the UNT ELEVAR Transition Pathways program alongside Melissa Savage, an assistant professor of educational psychology. Duwe is helping observe coaching sessions between UNT pre-service teaching students and middle and high school students with disabilities at North Texas school districts. Te study will ofer insight on the experiences of students with disabilities transitioning from K-12 to adulthood as well as the preparation of pre-service students to work with this population. In her career, Duwe wants to help international families who have children with disabilities to navigate the U.S. public school system.