Nine UR Students Named University Innovation Fellows; Join Global Group Dedicated to Becoming Campus Change Makers

November 5, 2020

UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND — Nine University of Richmond students have been named University Innovation Fellows. The students are among nearly 200 students from 45 higher education institutions in 14 countries to be chosen for this opportunity.

Program logoThe University Innovation Fellows program, run by Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, empowers students to become agents of change at their schools and provide student voices to conversations about the future of higher education. UR participated for the first time last year, and this year is supporting one of the largest student groups in the program.  

The new fellows, along with class year and major/minor, include:

  • Danny Anderson, 2023, philosophy, politics, economics, and law with a minor in entrepreneurship.
  • Khushi Basnyat, 2023, business administration with concentrations in management consulting and analytics.
  • Sophia Hartman, 2023, leadership studies with minors in dance, Latin American, Latino, and Iberian studies, and women, gender, and sexuality studies.
  • Penny Hu, 2023, computer science and business administration with a concentration in entrepreneurship.
  • Emma Johnson, 2022, healthcare studies and Russian.
  • Nichole Schiff, 2023, leadership studies with minors in visual media arts practice, and women, gender, and sexuality studies.
  • Chloe Khoshand, 2023, business administration.
  • Anthony Moody IV, 2022, business administration with a concentration in entrepreneurship.
  • Sarah Schalkoff, 2023, English and leadership studies.

By connecting with other fellows and leaders in academia and industry, fellows explore and develop project proposals and advocate for innovative changes on their campuses.

Fellows meetingThe UR group completed a rigorous six-week program and is already hard at work on a project establishing broader connections between students and academic resources to boost student exposure to innovation and entrepreneurship opportunities on campus. The fellows will work with campus leaders to pursue this initiative along with a variety of others at UR.

"These exceptional students have identified several novel opportunities for innovation for our campus community,” said Todd Lookingbill, a geography, environmental studies, and biology professor, who serves as the UR team’s faculty advisor along with Joel Mier, a lecturer in marketing in the Robins School of Business. “The empathy-centered approach to making change that they are learning and applying as part of the program has never been more important.”

Learn more about the students’ project in this video: Enhancing Access to Resources at the University of Richmond.

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