2022 Awardees

The Office of Technology Transfer hosted the 5th Annual Innovation of the Year Awards on Wednesday, November 9, 2022, in the University Student Center. This year’s celebration commemorated five years since the office’s inception and the beginning of Morgan’s innovation journey that continues to lead to noteworthy accolades in intellectual property disclosures, start-up companies, issued patents and patent applications.
 
The Office of Technology Transfer also highlighted innovators who have made substantial impact in their respective fields since the office was established. These innovators, awarded the Innovation Leader awards, were recognized for setting the standard among their colleagues and taking innovation and experiential learning opportunities for their students to new heights.
 
Innovation Leader Awardees
Life Science Innovation Leader
Dr. Viji Sitther
 
Physical Science Innovation Leader
Dr. Seong Lee
 
Information Science Innovation Leader
Dr. Kofi Nyarko
  
Intellectual Property Innovation Awardees – These awards recognize individuals who have created innovations in their respective research fields.
 
Physical Science Awardees – TIE
Integrated Automated Wheelchair and Adapted Automated Vehicle System
Dr. Mansoureh Jeihani, Dr. Kofi Nyarko, Dr. Eazaz Sadeghvaziri, Dr. Anam Ardeshiri
School of Engineering
 
This invention integrates two modes of travel with Automated Vehicle (AV) technology. An automated Wheelchair (AW) enables people with multiple types of disabilities to make short distance trips independently. The AW is aimed to be programmable to navigate its destination through the best route with minimal intervention. An Adapted Automated Vehicle (AAV) will enable people with disabilities to make their long-distance trips.
 
Carbon Nanotube Magnetic Sensor to Monitor Heavy Metals in Water
Dr. Dereje Seifu
School of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Science
 
The technology can detect heavy metals in tiny amounts from a contaminated water source. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) intercalated with magnetic nanoparticles of cobalt ferrite are used for detection, identification, and quantitation of chromium by observing changes in the magnetic properties of the composite.
 
Information Science Awardee
Detection and Survival Method against Adversarial Attacks on Automated Systems
Dr. Kevin Kornegay, Dr. Tsion Yimer, Edmund Smith
School of Engineering
 
The inventors have developed a new technique that employs measurements previously not utilized for security purposes to detect anomalies between operational and hidden sensors and introduces a mitigation strategy to use in hidden sensors to respond to attacks. Automated systems may include those that are a part of a greater Internet of Things (IoT) system and can include automated driving systems and controls on numerous types of devices.
 
Life Science Awardee
Accurate Sickle Cell Detection Method Using Deep Transfer Learning
Dr. Md Mahmudur Rahman
School of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Science
 
This invention focuses on recognizing visual patterns in blood smear images by applying Deep Transfer Learning with three pre-trained models. These models are compared to identify which of the models has the highest score of prediction and accuracy. The precision and recall are are calculated in this methodology, where precision is a number relevant to the query building retrieved images for the total number of retrieval images.
 
Morgan Community Innovator Awardees – These awards are presented to faculty, staff, and students who have contributed to the innovative landscape here at Morgan.
 
Student Innovator of the Year
Samuel Oludayo Alamu
Industrial & Systems Engineering
 
Instructional Innovator of the Year
Dr. Kimberly Warren
College of Liberal Arts, Psychology Department
 
Staff Innovator of the Year
Maia Maclin 

Patent Awardees
Adaptive Energy Efficient Cellular Network
U.S. Patent 11,240,752
Dr. Kevin Kornegay, Dr. Hailu Kassa
 
Composition and Method for Enhancing Photosynthetic Efficiency of Microorganisms
U.S. Patent 11,162,067
Dr. Viji Sitther, Dr. Benham Tabatabai, Dr. Kadir Aslan