Read Full Story on the Traverse City Record Eagle

A University of Michigan graduate is bringing her master’s degree project to life while simultaneously uplifting an Indigenous community.

For the past year and a half, Eva Roos has collaborated with the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians in Cheboygan County to design and implement a healing garden for its headquarters in Brutus.

While Roos used the project to complete her degrees in science and landscape architecture, the experience required her to become knowledgeable in the Band’s language, faith and cultural history.

The garden will be named Izhi-Minoging Mashkikiwan — which translates to “place where medicines grow well.”

Eva Roos; Master of Landscape Architecture, Master of Science in Conservation Ecology, School for Environment & Sustainability

“When you study at a westernized institution, it is very rare they make connections between Indigenous people and designing a landscape,” Roos said. “To me, especially if you’re interested in ecological design, you’re talking about ecosystems that have been cared for by Indigenous people for millennia.”

Roos brought the design proposal to the Burt Lake Band Tribal Council in December 2019. To her surprise, the council jumped at her plans almost immediately.

Visit the MIDAS website for more information

MIDAS is honored to work with five of Michigan’s Native American tribes to streamline their processes of data collection, analysis, and reporting for their educational systems. A team of undergraduate students, Kristen Shaw (Data Science), Gustavo D’Mello (Computer Science), Yeonho Jang (Computer Science), and Troy Sorensen (Computer Science), are working with the tribes’ education directors, with Dr. Tayo Fabusuyi as the mentor.

Kristen Shaw describes the project as “an incredible opportunity to give back to these communities around the state of Michigan while using the skills learned at U-M”. She is “excited to continue collaborating with the team of students and talking closely with the tribes’ education directors”.

MIDAS (Michigan Institute for Data Science) collaborates with community partners and supports the application of data science into impactful products, services, and policies, towards a better data-enabled society. Such collaboration also ensures that data science research is inspired by real-world problems and rooted in real-world data.

Visit the MIDAS website for more information

2018 Michigan Road Scholars visit St. Ignace

Read full article at The St. Ignace News

A group of faculty, researchers, students, and staff from the University of Michigan stopped in St. Ignace for the 2018 Michigan Road Scholar Program, which is offered through the University’s Office of Government Relations. The group from the Ann Arbor, Flint, and Dearborn campuses included people from a wide range of academic disciplines, including medicine, information sciences, international languages, design, communication, urban planning, gender studies, humanities, environmental studies, and law.

View the complete 2018 Road Scholars itinerary here and view the 2018 list of participants here.

For Additional Information Contact:

Dana Sitzler

Associate Director of State Outreach

[email protected] | 734-763-5554

Dana's areas of outreach include the west side of Michigan, northern, Tribal Connections and Project Manager for Michigan Road Scholars Tour.