2025 UMSI Student Project Exposition award winners announced

On April 21, 532 students from the University of Michigan School of Information presented cutting-edge information projects at the UMSI Student Project Exposition. 

The annual event, which fills the second floor of the Michigan League, celebrates work completed by UMSI students through capstone and client-based courses, community-based programs and independent projects.

Each year, top projects earn awards. A panel of UMSI alumni and industry experts served as this year’s judges, representing leading organizations including Google, Microsoft, the New York Public Library, Ford Motor Company and ArchiveSolutions. 

14 projects have been selected as award recipients in course-specific and thematic categories. The winning teams and individuals will be honored on April 24 at a private award ceremony. 

Final project awards ($3,000 for first prize; $1,500 for second prize) 

Bachelor of Science in Information (BSI) Capstone 

All BSI students are required to complete a final project with an external client. Projects in this category are in the areas of user experience design and information analysis. Students demonstrate theories and methods taught at UMSI, execute a clear plan, and provide feasible and valuable recommendations to the client organization. This award category includes eligible students from the BSI capstone courses. 

First prize: Interlibrary Loan: Connecting Rural Libraries to National Resources
SI 407/487 User Experience Capstone
Violet Ruiz, Anastasia Papageorgiou, Cindy Tan, Yilin Fang
Project description: “Michigan’s rural libraries face challenges accessing out-of-state materials due to costly subscriptions. The White Pine Library Cooperative’s Peabody interlibrary loan website helps bridge this gap. A website redesign is needed to ensure the program’s longevity and guarantee equitable access to information for Michigan residents.”

Second prize: Empowering Involvement in Criminal Justice Reform
Erin Chai, Charlotte Foley, Kishan Sripada, Amy Rodriguez
SI 407/487 User Experience Capstone
Project description: “Impartial was struggling to build a community, attract funding, and establish themselves as a trusted source of information in the criminal justice reform space. The solution was to restructure and revise the content and information architecture, ultimately helping them reach a wider audience.”

Residential Master’s Programs Final Projects

Projects in this category cover a broad range of focus areas, including digital preservation, user experience research and design, big data analytics, communities and collections, user-centered agile development and more. Students demonstrate theories and methods taught at UMSI, execute a clear plan, and provide feasible and valuable recommendations to the client organization. This award category includes projects from the SI 699 mastery courses and the SI 698 Master’s Thesis Option Program for Master of Science in Information and Master of Health Informatics students. 

First prize: News That Matters: Intelligent Risk Monitoring for Global Supply Chains
Huiyu Su, Shuting Lin, Xiyuan Wang, Yujun Zhang
SI 699: Big Data Analytics Mastery Course
Project description: “Identifying relevant news for supply chain disruptions is challenging yet essential. In partnership with PAXAFE, the project built a real-time monitoring system that maps critical events and assigns risk levels to logistics routes, enabling proactive decision-making to minimize delays and losses.”

Second prize: Reimagining Digital Surrogates at the Henry Ford Museum
SI 699: Librarianship and Archival Practice Mastery Course
Julia Cave Arbanas, Andrew Nakamura
Project description: “The Henry Ford Museum collects digital surrogates. However, their definition of digital surrogates does not account for the diversity in digital resources. This project developed changes to digital classifications and associated documentation for the museum’s efforts to update digital resource practices.”

Master of Applied Data Science (MADS) Capstone

All MADS students are required to complete a final project in SIADS 699, the MADS capstone course. Projects in this award category are a result of a project-based course in which students propose and build end-to-end data science projects in their domains of interest. Projects should demonstrate mastery of data science concepts and methods from the MADS curriculum, resulting in creative, original and technically rigorous portfolio pieces. 

First prize: Analyzing Brands on Reddit
Andreea Serban, Chris McAllister
SIADS 699: Master of Applied Data Science Capstone
Project description: “Analyzing Reddit sentiment to measure brand health in the digital age. Leveraging natural language processing to quantify brand sentiment across seven major companies, offering a new metric for proactive online reputation management. Potential to impact how brands monitor and improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.”

Second prize: Detecting and Mitigating Implicit and Explicit Bias on Social Networks Using ML and Generative AI
Celia B. Banks
SIADS 699: Master of Applied Data Science Capstone
Project description: “This project develops a machine learning algorithm to detect and mitigate biases in social networks. Leveraging generative AI, it aims to unlearn implicit bias in user interactions, reducing caustic content with minimal reliance on human oversight, enabling a noncontroversial user experience.”

Thematic awards ($1,500 for first prize; $500 for second prize) 

Theme Year: Future of Work

Students explored the forces shaping the future of work — from technological advancements to societal shifts — during the school’s 2024-25 theme year. Projects in this category focused on the challenges and opportunities associated with the future of work, including but not limited to innovation, skill development, remote work, global talent pools, sustainability, well-being, and automation. 

First prize: Optimizing Tire Health Management: Bridging the Gap for Fleet Efficiency
Jess Cummings, Robert Bowser, Scarlet Wong, Kimberly Lillios, Siyu Zhong
SI 407/487 User Experience Capstone
Project description: “Bridgestone’s tire health management platform presented usability challenges, making it difficult for users to efficiently access key tools and insights. This project redesigned the platform to improve navigability, streamline workflows and integrate AI-driven recommendations, ensuring a more intuitive and efficient experience for all users managing tire health and fleet performance.”

Second prize: Icicl
Independent Project
Melp Meredith, Steven Liu, Marie Nurdauletova, Shawn Halimman, Qingqing Yan
Project description: “Icicl is a generative AI platform to help professors prepare for course materials more efficiently, created as part of the Business + Tech Innovation Jam.”

Entrepreneurship/Innovation

This award category is for projects that develop, organize and/or run a new business or creative initiative or approach. Consideration was given to students or teams that embraced the opportunity to create value through innovative solutions, were collaborative, and demonstrated success in uncertainty.

First prize: OXR
Independent Project
Chiao Lin, Nathaniel Liganor, Ying Hei Lau, Andy Yao, Ting Lu, Evelyn Luan, Vivek Selvaraj, Anhua Wu, Tony Ren
Project description: “A classroom-ready XR management system that makes immersive learning as easy as Google Classroom, with real-time control and cross-device compatibility for seamless, scalable teaching.”

Second prize: EchoRead
SI 699: Big Data Analytics Mastery Course
Niloufar Sedarati
Project description: “EchoRead converts web articles into human-like audio, addressing information overload and accessibility barriers. By offering natural text-to-speech narration and summarization, it enhances content consumption, making information more accessible and engaging for diverse users in different languages.”

Access, Belonging and Inclusion

This award recognizes projects focused on broadening access and reducing obstacles to information and resources. Projects in this category demonstrate inclusive work that enables fair treatment and full participation of all people — whether within UMSI, U-M, surrounding communities or society at large. This category supports UMSI’s mission to create and share knowledge so that people will use information — with technology — to build a better world.

First prize: Empowering Trans Youth: Stand with Trans Website Redesign
SI 407/487 User Experience Capstone
Robin Jiao, Sarah Penrose, Elle Feldman, Maddie House
Project description: “Stand with Trans is a Michigan-based nonprofit providing critical support to transgender youth and their loved ones. However, our research revealed community members were struggling to access key resources on their website. To address this, our team redesigned the mobile website experience, empowering trans youth to access resources and community.”

Second prize: Reimagining Eviction Court Forms
Rachael Zuppke
SI 691: Independent Study
Project description: “Each year, between 170,000 and 190,000 eviction cases are filed in Michigan. Of these cases, only 2 percent of tenants have legal representation. This project seeks to improve court access for self-represented tenants by redesigning Michigan’s eviction court forms using human-centered design.”

Community/Civic Engagement

This award is for projects that focus on the participation, rights and obligations of people in society, including local initiatives. Projects should demonstrate engagement with government, community and/or local nonprofits and serve the public good or be citizen centered. In 2024-25, the University of Michigan celebrated the Year of Democracy, Civic Empowerment and Global Engagement. Projects associated with the university-wide theme are included in this category.

First prize: UnityPhilly: Community-Driven Response to the Opioid Overdose Crisis
Hamza Naveed and Sheza Naveed
Independent Project
Project description: “In the United States, opioid overdose deaths outnumber motor vehicle crash deaths — many of them preventable. UnityPhilly, a National Institutes of Health-funded app, empowers community members to respond to nearby overdoses. A pilot with 112 volunteers showed its potential to save lives and scale nationwide.”

Second prize: Enhancing Medication Adherence Through Contextual Reminders
SI 699: User Experience Research and Design Mastery Course
Sarosh Manzar, Mya Dobbs, Angelica Wang, Ziqian Wang
Project description: “This project addresses medication nonadherence caused by forgetfulness or routine disruptions. We designed an app that delivers adaptive reminders, confirmation mechanisms and refill alerts. By integrating into routines, this enhances adherence, supporting individuals in managing medications.”

The Hoffman Family Engaged Learning Fund and the UMSI Office of Organizational Culture and Community provided funding for this year’s awards. 

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View past winners of Exposition  

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