UConn Today – Two OPIM professors, known for their scholarship and groundbreaking work in the classroom, were honored with prestigious awards by the Information Systems Society at its annual conference in San Francisco earlier this month.
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Two Teams of UConn Grad Students Win Big at InsurTech Innovation Competition
UConn Today – Two teams of UConn graduate students walked away with impressive victories and $7,000 in prize money after the InsurTech America Innovation Challenge in Hartford last week.
UConn MSBAPM students Jeff Xu and Mingdi Luo and FERM student Bingjie Liu took home first place and $5,000 for their ideas about minimizing theft risk for long-haul cargo. Their innovative platform, called CargoShield, is designed to help freight brokers and insurance companies. The team conducted a simulated demonstration to show how to evaluate the risk, generate a risk score, and provide recommendations to protect cargo prior to transport.
UConn Professor Co-Chairs National Academies Study of Federal Small Business Innovation Programs
UConn Today – When the federal government invests hundreds of millions of dollars annually in small-business research and development, how should it determine whether those investments make a meaningful impact?
That question was pivotal to a comprehensive National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study co-chaired by UConn business professor Timothy B. Folta, the Thomas John and Bette Wolff Family Chair in Strategic Entrepreneurship at the School of Business.
CCEI’s Jennifer Mathieu Wins ‘Women of Innovation’ Award
UConn Today – Jennifer Mathieu ’09 (CLAS) ’23 MBA, the executive director of UConn’s Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation was selected as a Connecticut Women of Innovation Award recipient on Tuesday.
The award, given by the Connecticut Technology Council, recognizes women for their achievements in science, tech, engineering and math. This year 100 nominees –from scientists to manufacturers to academics—competed for the recognition. Mathieu was honored in the Academic Innovation & Leadership category for post-secondary institutions.
Dr. Brianna Siegel Helps Her Patients, In Sickness and In Health
UConn Today – Dr. Brianna Siegel ’26 MBA was five years into her career as a primary care physician when COVID-19 changed her professional trajectory.
As she cared for her patients, she joined her colleagues at the Stamford Health Medical Group in designing systemwide responses to the challenges of the pandemic. The experience drew her back toward medical education and administration, a field she had considered pursuing during her chief residency at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York, and this ultimately propelled her toward an MBA.
Steve Gillette ‘26 MSA Trades Police Badge for Business Balance Sheet
UConn Today – Imagine waking up one morning and trading a police uniform and bulletproof vest for a dress shirt and tie. The handcuffs, patrol car, and emergency sirens are gone, replaced by the new tools of the trade: spreadsheets, financial statements, and the latest accounting software.
For most people, such a transition would be a shock to the system. But for Steve Gillette ’26 MSA, a former Glastonbury police officer turned accountant, that change was a hard but intentional choice.
UConn Researcher’s Insight on Small-Business Bankruptcy Recovery Draws the Attention of Congress
UConn Today – New research by UConn finance professor Xiang Zheng indicates that an improved bankruptcy procedure, designed to make reorganization easier and less expensive for small businesses, is proving successful in enabling many of those companies to regroup and remain in business.
‘The Angus of Oysters’
UConn Today – When seafood entrepreneur Keegan Jalbert’s startup AccessFlora won the Wolff New Venture Competition on Tuesday night, it took him a few minutes to compose himself.
It’s not every day that a new entrepreneur gets a $40,000 check and $5,000 in pro bono services.
“I had been running on 24 hours of full nerves, and I felt like a tank that is pressure rated. I had surpassed what my body could tolerate,’’ says Jalbert ’23 (CLAS) ’27 MS. “When they announced that I had won the top prize, I was calm at first and then I was crying. And I’m not a crier. The recognition is so powerful.’’
Suhitha Sreedhar, Co-Founder of the Thrift Den, to Represent School of Business at U.N. Climate Conference
UConn Today – Representatives from around the world will descend upon Antalya, Turkey, next month to discuss one of the most complex and important issues facing our world—climate change.
Suhitha Sreedhar, a senior in the School of Business, will get a front-row seat to those conversations. She is one of the UConn delegates who will attend the United Nation’s Conference of Parties (COP), an annual symposium held this year from Nov. 9 to 20.
Sreedhar, a management major with a minor in social responsibility and impact in business, is excited for the trip, seeing this as a culmination of her work at UConn and a boost to her future aspirations.
The World is His Oyster
UConn Today – Graduate student Keegan Jalbert ’23 (CLAS) ’27 MS has always been interested in agriculture, food, and innovation. Today he is finding new ways to grow oysters and share his love of seafood with customers who live far from the ocean.
Jalbert is the founder of AccessFlora, a sustainable aquaculture company with a proprietary omega-3 aquafeed for raising oysters in purified water at a hatchery. The outcome is a larger and healthier shellfish that isn’t confined to the coast nor dependent upon favorable ocean conditions.