FEATURE
The Next Century of Spartans
By Cassie Myers
Visions of the future often look like science fiction movies, with everyone in silver jumpsuits and flying cars. Or they鈥檙e apocalyptic, featuring fire-and-brimstone hellscapes. But, of course, no one knows what the future will bring.
What we do know is that San Jos茅 State will be a part of it, as our Spartans help shape the future through patents, scholarship, business ventures, community projects and much, much more. Follow us as we imagine the next century of Spartans.
As Andrew Jenkins, 鈥�21 Political Science, 鈥�23 MS Justice Studies, 鈥�24 MS Interdisciplinary Studies, and Concussion Coach co-founder, states, 鈥淪an Jos茅 has a lot of knowledge and a lot of people who want to change the world, and at San Jos茅 State, we preach and pride ourselves on being the pioneers of change.鈥�
Patents
Spartan inventors are hard at work in various fields, securing patents for potentially revolutionary ideas for the future of science, engineering, medicine and more.
What could this mean for our next century? A great deal. In our idealized, Spartan-led future:
Breastfeeding women have a less painful option for breast pumps, thanks to Lin Jiang, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.
Elizabeth Skovran, professor of biological sciences, uses her genetically modified bacteria to eat rare earth metals in electronic waste, which researchers then recover and re-use.
New treatments help alleviate painful chemotherapy-induced neuropathy in cancer patients, courtesy of discoveries made in part by Katie Wilkinson, professor of biological sciences.
A modular, full-body exoskeleton with removable and adjustable pieces helps those with mobility issues walk again or gain better control of their bodies, courtesy of Mojtaba Sharifi, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.
AI and Adaptive Devices
As anyone in Silicon Valley has heard ad nauseam, artificial intelligence is the wave of the future. As a tool, AI has great potential and countless applications, from medicine to business to engineering and beyond.
So if we project into the next century of Spartans, we know AI and adaptive devices will play a role, although we don鈥檛 know precisely what that role will be. Professors and student entrepreneurs currently exploring AI may bring more questions, projects and inventions forward.
Some of these may include:
, which uses machine-learning to help determine a wildfire鈥檚 trajectory. Huston Scharnagl, 鈥�24 Aerospace Engineering, and Sofia Silva, 鈥�24 Software Engineering, who spearheaded the project, have high hopes for its future.
鈥淎 lot of us think the software is a great individual product and we鈥檇 love to see them refine and actually produce this individual product because it could save millions of lives,鈥� Scharnagl says.
鈥淚 hope that this will eventually help people,鈥� Silva agrees. 鈥淕oing into this, I never expected our senior design project to blow up like it did.
鈥淏ut seeing all of this work pay off through competitions and seeing the work acknowledged by people is very rewarding in itself. Regardless of where this project goes, I still want to develop it and make it better than it is. I鈥檓 very excited.鈥�
Project Firewatch and Concussion Coach team representatives at the Sunstone CSU Startup Launch Competition. Photo courtesy of Michael Ashley.
鈥淪eeing all of this work pay off through competitions and seeing the work acknowledged by people is very rewarding in itself. Regardless of where this project goes, I still want to develop it and make it better than it is. I鈥檓 very excited.鈥�
鈥� Sofia Silva
Top photo: Laura Miller Conrad works with a student researcher in her lab. Photo by Robert C. Bain.
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