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Jennifer Johnson named director of Kansas Fire & Rescue Training Institute
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas Jayhawk Global has announced the appointment of Jennifer Johnson as the director of the Kansas Fire & Rescue Training Institute (KFRTI). Johnson joined KFRTI in January 2020 as assistant director and certification program manager, and she was appointed the interim director in June 2023 when then-director Kelly McCoy accepted a different role at KU.

One year after Mahsa Jina Amini’s death, KU researchers analyze social media responses in Iran
LAWRENCE — Just over one year ago, Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Jina Amini was killed, setting off some of the largest protests in Iran’s recent history. Her death, widely attributed to a beating after her arrest by the nation’s morality police for not wearing her hijab correctly, spurred protests calling for improved women’s rights. A new study from the University of Kansas examines how social media has powered the protests and if the cause has shifted away from a women’s rights focus, like many before it.

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Contact: Valerie Hawley, Jayhawk Global, [email protected]
Jennifer Johnson named director of Kansas Fire & Rescue Training Institute
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas Jayhawk Global has announced the appointment of Jennifer Johnson as the director of the Kansas Fire & Rescue Training Institute (KFRTI). The decision follows an extensive nationwide search and has been confirmed by the Fire Service Training Commission (FSTC), per KSA 76-327d, the FSTC shall “approve selection of the director of the fire service training …”
Johnson’s journey with KFRTI began in January 2020 when she assumed the role as assistant director and certification program manager. She also represents Kansas as a member of the North American Fire Training Directors. Her commitment to the fire service is also reflected in her 22-year career with the Kansas City Fire Department, spending seven years as a company officer and three years as a chief officer. She retired in 2019 as the chief of policy development and Commission on Fire Accreditation International accreditation manager.
Johnson holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from KU and a master’s degree in public affairs/disaster and emergency management from Park University. She has also contributed to academia as an adjunct instructor with Kansas City Kansas Community College and Columbia Southern University.
“I am excited for the next chapter of KFRTI under Jennifer’s dynamic leadership,” said Michelle Mohr Carney, founding vice provost for Jayhawk Global. “Her commitment, experience and innovative approach are exactly what KFRTI needs to flourish. Please join me in extending our warmest congratulations to Jennifer on this well-deserved and exciting appointment.”
Johnson’s appointment follows her tenure as interim director of KFRTI, a position she assumed after the departure of Kelly McCoy, who served as director for almost three years.
In his farewell statement, McCoy expressed his confidence in Johnson’s abilities: “Jennifer and I have worked closely together at the strategic level of organizational leadership over the past two years, advancing public safety training infrastructure in the state of Kansas. Jennifer is an experienced and creative leader, able to meaningfully collaborate with others and lead change. I am confident Jennifer will be highly successful.”
Johnson’s contributions to KFRTI include her work as the certification program manager, where she managed KFRTI’s certification program and its unit International Fire Service Accreditation Congress and ProBoard Accreditation. Her role as assistant director involved overseeing accreditation and credentialing, course registrations and reconciliations, grant management and all other fiscal activities for KFRTI.
“I have dedicated my entire career to serving the Kansas Fire Services, and the opportunity to lead our fire service family at this level is a tremendous honor,” Johnson said. “Our remarkable team at KFRTI has achieved significant milestones in recent years, and I am immensely proud of our collective accomplishments. I look forward to our continued collaboration and the privilege of delivering outstanding training to our state firefighters.”

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One year after Mahsa Jina Amini’s death, KU researchers analyze social media responses in Iran
LAWRENCE — Just over one year ago, Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Jina Amini was killed, setting off some of the largest protests in Iran’s recent history. Her death, widely attributed to a beating after her arrest by the nation’s morality police for not wearing her hijab correctly, spurred protests calling for improved women’s rights. A new study from the University of Kansas examines how social media has powered the protests and if the cause has shifted away from a women’s rights focus, like many before it.
Pegah Naemi Jimenez, research associate; Ariana Nasrazadani, assistant researcher senior, and Rose Hicks, a student staff member, all with KU’s School of Social Welfare, have analyzed social media posts regarding Amini’s death and the protests in the subsequent six months. They found that the message has shifted from one of demanding rights for women to a broader focus of human rights under an oppressive regime.
“There have been uprisings of social protest in Iran since the 1800s, the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the most recent protests in 2022, which some call the women’s revolution, are the most in the global mainstream,” Naemi Jimenez said. “We see women’s and feminist movements in Iran where women are a frequently a catalyst for change. The repression is usually worst for them, but it becomes more of a discussion of human rights, not women’s rights.”
To determine if such a shift were happening again, Naemi Jimenez and Nasrazadani began studying social media posts made immediately after Amini’s death, two months later and six months later. Posts made on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Reddit were captured and analyzed for language they used, whether they contained hashtags such as #MahsaAmini, #womenslifefreedom or #freeIran and if they included photos, videos or descriptions.
“Pretty early on, it shifts to, ‘Why are we living like this?’” Nasrazadani said of the tone of social media posts. “It’s important to know Iran has an extremely young population. During the war with Iraq, the government said, ‘Have more children. Make more martyrs for us,’ and so they did. These are people who’ve only known theocracy. I think that makes it easy for this to transition to a broader social movement.”
Two researchers have deep ties to Iran. Naemi Jimenez was born there, and her family immigrated to the United States during the war with Iraq. Nasrazadani’s father immigrated to the United States in the mid-1970s while much of the rest of her family stayed behind. She also had an uncle who was killed in the war at the age of 16 and said she has been confronted by the nation’s morality police while visiting Iran in the past.
The researchers said they wanted to analyze social media posts about the protests because while the nation’s government works to control access to social media, it is still citizens’ most effective way to share their messages.
The findings show that posts talking about the murder largely focused on women’s rights but within six months were mostly about larger issues of human rights. The tone reveals many people are against the country’s current regime yet love their homeland. That follows a pattern of protests from 2009, 2017 and 2019.
“People are not anti-Iran, or anti Iranian identity,” Naemi Jimenez said. “They’re speaking about an identity they want and know they can have.”
The shift in messages follows a pattern from the Green Movement in 2009, which began as a protest to the highly contentious presidential election. That was a precursor to the larger Arab Spring in 2010 and 2011, and like the current movement, gained momentum after the death of a young woman. Today, people remember the uprisings across Northern Africa and the Middle East but largely forget they started with protests in Iran that were often organized by women, the researchers said.
Naemi Jimenez and Nasrazadani are presenting their early findings at a research impact talk Oct. 13.
The researchers will continue to study posts regarding the protests beyond six months since Amini’s death and hope to expand their research to examine how Iranian exiled communities and Iranian Americans have experienced the protests in the year since the murder. They said they are already beginning to see posts removed from social media and preemptive limiting of internet access around the first anniversary of Amini’s death Sept. 16.
“The Iranian government says women are important, that they are the cornerstone of family and the household, but they don’t treat them that way,” Nasrazadani said. “There is real cognitive dissonance happening, because we’re being told we need to value women, yet they’re being murdered. We’ve seen a lot of that sentiment in the social media posts we’ve analyzed.”
While social media postings have shown a shift in focus from women’s rights to broader human rights issues, the researchers said they hope their study can show that both are valuable and part of a bigger global discussion about women’s social activism in Iran.
“Part of the goal is to provide these conversations so that when we talk about women’s movements, there is not that invisibility. There is often a tension of whose issues we talk about first,” Naemi Jimenez said. “We can start from the collective. This is our attempt to begin that discourse so people know that this Iranian women’s movement is feminism and it can be part of a global collective.”

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New book explores how political ideology affects public opinion on wrongful convictions
LAWRENCE — A new book from a University of Kansas associate professor of political science argues that the adoption of policy reforms designed to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions is contingent on the ideological leaning of a state, the governor’s partisanship and the presence of innocence advocacy groups. “The Politics of Innocence: How Wrongful Convictions Shape Public Opinion” was published earlier this week by NYU Press.

Spotlight on mud snakes: Study unveils evolutionary secrets of enigmatic snake family from Southeastern Asia
LAWRENCE — A new University of Kansas genomic investigation of a group of unheralded but unique “mud snakes” from Southeast Asia is rewriting the evolutionary history of this family, named the Homalopsidae. The results were published in the Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists. Species of mud snake can inhabit fresh, brackish or saltwater coastal and inland areas, mostly sleeping by day and munching on fish and crustaceans by night. Now, they’ve also fascinated two generations of KU researchers.

Four professors awarded Big XII Faculty Fellowships
LAWRENCE — Four University of Kansas professors have been selected for the Big XII Faculty Fellowship Program, which provides tenured and tenure-track faculty up to $2,500 in travel funding to collaborate with peers at other Big 12 institutions. Fellows can use the funding to visit campuses, bring colleagues from peer institutions to KU or access unique resources.

Full stories below.

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Contact: Jon Niccum, KU News Service, 785-864-7633, [email protected]
New book explores how political ideology affects public opinion on wrongful convictions
LAWRENCE — The Central Park Five. Amanda Knox. Henry and Leon McCollum. Kevin Strickland.
More stories emerge seemingly every week about convicted “criminals” being exonerated.
“Wrongful convictions are not a new phenomenon. What is new is the volume of media attention to the topic. As such, more people hear about them and discuss them,” said Kevin Mullinix, associate professor of political science at the University of Kansas.
Mullinix’s new book, “The Politics of Innocence: How Wrongful Convictions Shape Public Opinion,” argues that the adoption of policy reforms designed to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions is contingent on the ideological leaning of a state, the governor’s partisanship and the presence of innocence advocacy groups. It’s published by NYU Press.
“In addition to showing what leads to state-level policy reform, we demonstrate how media coverage of wrongful convictions changes people’s attitudes about criminal justice issues and the death penalty,” said Mullinix, who co-wrote the book with Robert Norris of George Mason University and William Hicks of Appalachian State University.
Whether it’s TV series such as “When They See Us” and “Making a Murderer,” podcasts such as “Serial” or even local news organizations covering regional cases, the media attention devoted to exonerations has undeniable impact.
“Our research suggests that when people see those stories, it makes them less confident that the justice system always gets it right. And it makes them willing to support policy changes that reduce the likelihood of these errors,” he said.
But this happens more in some environments than others.
“Addressing wrongful convictions seems like it should be apolitical and non-ideological,” Mullinix said. “It isn’t. The ways in which people think about wrongful convictions are shaped by politics and ideology. But a lot of these divisions are rooted in differences based on people’s awareness of the problem.”
The authors’ research shows that conservatives are less likely to report hearing about wrongful convictions and they believe these occur less frequently. Conservatives are also less supportive of policy reforms aimed at reducing wrongful convictions.
“We don’t see ideological differences in the rates at which people hear about wrongful convictions in entertainment-based fictional media like television shows, movies and books. However, we observe a big gap between liberals and conservatives in whether they hear true stories about wrongful convictions from their preferred news outlets,” he said.
Mullinix finds that when individuals are provided information regarding wrongful convictions, they become more concerned about the issue and more supportive of reforms. So, yes, ideology shapes people’s initial awareness of it. But once someone learns the facts, they support policy changes, regardless of whether they are liberal, moderate or conservative.
His team began working on this project in 2016. Even in just seven years, public attention to the issue has magnified dramatically.
“In 2016, the National Registry of Exonerations reported just over 1,800 verified exonerations in the U.S. since 1989. That obviously doesn’t account for every wrongful conviction — those are just the verified exonerations documented by the registry. I looked it up the other day, and it is now over 3,300,” he said.
Is there a single unifying aspect to these convictions that Mullinix sees repeatedly?
“One of the biggest threads through a lot of these cases is an overreliance on eyewitness testimony. But one of the things I find reassuring is that the justice system, law enforcement and the mass public are increasingly aware of the flaws associated with eyewitness testimony,” he said.
Mullinix, an expert in public opinion and public policy who has been at KU since 2018, has written extensively on topics involving justice policy reform. These include “The Feedback Effects of Controversial Police Use of Force,” (Political Behavior, 2020), “Framing Innocence: An Experimental Test of the Effects of Wrongful Convictions on Public Opinion” (Journal of Experimental Criminology, 2019) and “Partisanship and Support for Restricting the Civil Liberties of Suspected Terrorists” (Political Behavior, 2022).
He said one of the biggest challenges of writing the new book was the weight of the subject matter.
“It’s emotionally trying to hear these stories and see another one pop up time and again,” Mullinix said.
“There is a ripple effect for each wrongful conviction. First, there is the person who has been wrongfully convicted. Then there are the families of the victims who believed the actual perpetrator was caught and convicted – and then it is revealed they’re not. Then there are the prosecutors and law enforcement who sincerely believed they helped convict the true criminal. They must come to terms with the role they might have played in an innocent person losing years of their life. The scale and magnitude of pain and heartbreak is difficult to grasp. It takes an emotional toll to think about, but that is exactly what we should do.”
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Contact: Brendan Lynch, KU News Service, 785-864-8855, [email protected], @BrendanMLynch
Spotlight on mud snakes: Study unveils evolutionary secrets of enigmatic snake family from Southeastern Asia

LAWRENCE — A new University of Kansas genomic investigation of a group of unheralded but unique “mud snakes” from Southeast Asia is rewriting the evolutionary history of this family, named the Homalopsidae. The results just were published in the Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists.
Species of mud snake can inhabit fresh, brackish or saltwater coastal and inland areas, mostly sleeping by day and munching on fish and crustaceans by night. Now, they’ve also fascinated two generations of KU researchers.
The new DNA-driven investigation by lead author Justin Bernstein, a KU Center for Genomics postdoctoral researcher, is an example of systematics: the study of how species evolve and their relationships through time. It builds on a “monumental” study of mud snakes conducted without benefit of DNA analysis in 1970 by Ko Ko Gyi. Gyi was a promising evolutionary biologist from Myanmar who conducted research in the Division of Herpetology of the KU Natural History Museum during a three-year fellowship from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
“Our new paper looks at the evolutionary relationships and history of mud snakes, which are found in primarily South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Guinea — and they’re very poorly studied,” Bernstein said. “We don’t know too much about them, despite decades of effort, including the efforts of Gyi, because they’re kind of hard to find. They’re aquatic snakes who prefer muddy environments. They’re nocturnal. Very few people have studied their evolution.”
Bernstein and his co-authors shed light on mud snake evolutionary history using genomics by combining genetic analyses of older museum specimens’ mitochondrial DNA with fresher genetic samples from recent field collections (which allow for much higher-resolution molecular analysis — they used data from 4,800 nuclear loci in each genome).
“If you have an animal that’s been dead for days and extract DNA from that tissue, it’s going to be degraded — it’s not going to be high quality, which interferes with our results,” Bernstein said. “That means we either can’t analyze it, or the results might be kind of weird and we can’t trust them. But this idea of getting DNA from old specimens in natural history museums has really been on the rise in the last decade. While the DNA is degraded, there’ve been protocols in the last 10 years to get high-quality DNA out of old specimens that are over 100 years old from natural history collections.”
The researchers used the mitochondrial data from those museum-specimen samples to fill in knowledge gaps for a more accurate biogeographic history of Homalopsidae. Combining that with DNA samples from recent specimens, they reconstructed the most comprehensive family tree of Homalopsidae relationships, showing which species branched from common ancestors and roughly when.
Bernstein’s co-authors were Hugo de Souza and Kartik Shanker of the Indian Institute of Science; John Murphy, Harold Voris and Sara Ruane of the Field Museum in Chicago; Edward Myers of Clemson University and the California Academy of Sciences; Sean Harrington of the University of Wyoming and American Museum of Natural History; and Rafe Brown, curator-in-charge at the KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum and professor of ecology & evolutionary biology.
“Following up on Gyi’s pioneering and foundational work, Justin has been able to avail of a technological breakthrough, which we refer to now as ‘museumomics’ — the extraction and sequencing of degraded DNA, even from very old formalin-preserved specimens that were preserved dozens to hundreds of years ago,” said Brown, who served as an “outside” member of Bernstein’s doctoral committee at Rutgers. “Obviously, the quality of that highly degraded DNA is variable, but new genomic sequencing technologies, bioinformatic tools, and diligent studies on the part of museum biologists have developed best practices for reconstructing highly fragmented genomes of specimens that were preserved upwards of a century ago. Justin successfully harnessed these new state-of-the-art tools, but also brought his own research ‘full circle,’ historically following up on Gyi’s work.”
The new paper shows one long-held concept regarding mud snakes was incorrect. For years, scientists (including Bernstein) thought ice age fluctuations in sea level might have acted as a “species pump” that drove diversification of the mud snakes. Indeed, much regional biodiversity can be traced to sea level rise and fall. But the new paper shows, “Pleistocene sea level changes and habitat specificity did not primarily lead to the extant species richness of Homalopsidae.”
Instead, Bernstein and his colleagues believe a more likely driver of mud snake species richness happened around 20 million years earlier, during the Oligocene, when sliding tectonic plates and shifting rivers in Southeast Asia might have severed and reestablished gene flow repeatedly between mud snake groups, driving diversification.
“Although we can never prove what did happen, exactly, to trigger diversification in mud snakes, we can rule out, or reject, some previously articulated hypotheses,” Bernstein said. “Because we found strong statistical support for diversification pre-dating Pleistocene sea level fluctuations by 15-20 million years, we need to look to alternative explanations, or novel ways of interpreting the production of biodiversity.”
Bernstein and Brown are quick to point to the pioneering work on mud snakes performed 50 years ago by Gyi, whose work not only figured into the new paper but had several ideas confirmed by later DNA testing.
“Gyi completed a monumental work on this group of snakes, more than 50 years ago, and without the benefit of molecular analysis,” Brown said. “That, in and of itself, is quite an accomplishment — his work was thoroughly comprehensive for the time, he really made the most of the available technologies, such as detailed X-rays of the skulls of all the species in this mysterious group of snakes, and he totally took the study of the evolutionary relationships of mud snakes ‘from zero to 60’ in his 1970 monograph. I know his adviser, the late Bill Duellman, was heartbroken to find out that Gyi passed away unexpectedly back in Myanmar, shortly after he left KU. But, here at KU, we still honor revisit and celebrate Ko Ko Gyi’s unique contributions, even to this day, and his work is continued on by Field Museum of Natural History researchers John Murphy and Harold K. Voris — and now by Justin Bernstein.”
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Four professors awarded Big XII Faculty Fellowships

LAWRENCE — Four University of Kansas professors have been selected for the Big XII Faculty Fellowship Program, which provides tenured and tenure-track faculty up to $2,500 in travel funding to collaborate with peers at other Big 12 institutions. Fellows can use the funding to visit campuses, bring colleagues from peer institutions to KU or access unique resources.
The 2023-24 Big XII Fellowship recipients:
1. Eileen Nutting, Department of Philosophy
2. Lin Liu, Department of Mechanical Engineering
3. Sheyda Jahanbani, Department of History
4. E. Bruce Hayes, Department of French, Francophone & Italian Studies
“The Big XII Faculty Fellowship is an important opportunity for our KU faculty to collaborate and connect with scholars from across the Big XII conference,” said Amy Mendenhall, vice provost for faculty affairs. “This fellowship provides a platform for showcasing and supporting the important work of our KU faculty as they advance research and discovery with scholars at other Big XII institutions, strengthen research partnerships and promote their scholarship through public presentations to students, faculty and the greater campus communities across the Big 12.”
About the recipients
Eileen Nutting
Eileen Nutting, associate professor of philosophy, is preparing for her fall 2023 visit to the University of Texas at Austin. Collaborating with philosopher Jon Litland, they will explore paradoxes in metaphysics, logic and the philosophy of mathematics. In addition to holding in-depth discussions with Litland, Nutting plans to participate in graduate seminars and present her latest research. Their continued exchange of ideas will fuel ongoing research, inspire prospective collaborations and strengthen connections between the philosophy departments at KU and Texas.
Nutting joined the KU faculty in 2013.
Nutting said, “UT Austin has a world-class philosophy department, and I’m delighted to have the chance to get to know their faculty and graduate students. I’m especially grateful that the Big XII Faculty Fellowship will allow me to spend two full weeks working through research ideas with Jon Litland. The length of the visit will allow for a more sustained conversation, and consequently more substantive research progress, than would be possible in a shorter visit.”
Lin Liu
Lin Liu, associate professor of mechanical engineering, is collaborating with Kansas State University researchers to advance hydrogen production technology. Their work is focused on improving protonic ceramic electrolysis cells (PCECs) to increase efficiency and reduce cost involved with hydrogen generation. Liu plans to develop physics-based models and conduct experiments in an effort to optimize PCEC-positive electrodes. This project builds on recent breakthroughs in electrocatalysts and proton-conducting oxides. It is notable that Liu’s project also involves testing partnerships with Idaho National Lab and Pacific Northwest National Lab. By improving hydrogen production technology, this research can benefit sustainable energy efforts.
Liu joined the KU faculty in 2013.
Liu said, “The success of this project will not only produce results to strengthen our previous proposals but also create new knowledge to predict, design, synthesize and characterize the positive electrode for efficient and durable PCECs. Furthermore, obtained fundamental understanding, novel materials, novel experimental methods and devices may benefit other research fields, such as lithium metal batteries.”
Sheyda Jahanbani
Sheyda Jahanbani, associate professor of history, will visit the University of Texas at Austin to collaborate with Professor Mark Atwood Lawrence. During the fellowship, Jahanbani will present her latest book, “The Poverty of the World: Rediscovering the Poor at Home and Abroad.” She also plans to study connections between historical and modern poverty reduction efforts, as well as conduct interviews with leaders of influential organizations tied to President Lyndon Johnson’s administration. A couple of these significant organizations include Bread for the World and the Eleanor Crook Foundation. The fellowship will enable Jahanbani to learn about UT Austin’s applied social science program and help establish similar undergraduate opportunities at KU.
Jahanbani joined the KU faculty in 2007.
Jahanbani said, “Nurturing existing relationships with the director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, faculty in the department of history at UT, and scholars at LBJ School of Public Administration, I am going to be exploring ways we can use innovative applied research strategies in our teaching in the history department at KU.”
Bruce Hayes
Bruce Hayes, professor of French, Francophone & Italian studies, will spend a week at the University of Texas at Austin collaborating with peers. At UT’s esteemed Harry Ransom Center, Hayes will look at rare Renaissance texts, including a 1598 edition of Montaigne’s “Essais.” Beyond research, Hayes plans to share insights on student recruitment and retention with UT’s French & Italian department faculty. This will include giving a talk about strategies to attract and engage students in the field. This opportunity allows Hayes to advance his work through strengthening scholarly networks while returning with new knowledge and insights to improve KU’s respective programs.
Hayes joined the KU faculty in 2001.
Hayes said, “I am both excited and honored to be invited by the Department of French & Italian at the University of Texas-Austin, including support from Professor Marc Bizer, a leading scholar in my field of French Renaissance studies. I look forward to giving a talk to the department and engaging in dialogue about student recruitment and retention while I am there.”

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KU News Service
1450 Jayhawk Blvd.
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KU ranks 40th among US public universities granted utility patents in 2022
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas ranked 40th among public institutions in the Top 100 U.S. Universities Granted Utility Patents in 2022, a new list published by the National Academy of Inventors. The list showcases universities that play a pivotal role in advancing the innovation ecosystem within and beyond the United States. KU ranked 65th among all universities. “The inclusion of KU on this year’s NAI list of top 100 U.S. universities recognizes not just the number and quality of new inventions coming from KU’s research community, but also the commitment of KU in support of innovative research,” said Clifford Michaels, executive director of the KU Center for Technology Commercialization.

Four KU faculty members awarded Keeler Intra-University Professorships
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas has announced that four professors have been awarded Keeler Intra-University Professorships, which provide faculty the opportunity to expand their scholarship and foster cross-disciplinary collaboration. Recipients include an artist who will participate in geologic field research to further inform his work and an American studies professor who will explore the complex intersections of guns, art and culture in America primarily through resources at the Spencer Museum of Art.

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Contact: Mindie Paget, Office of Research, 785-864-0013, [email protected], @ResearchAtKU
KU ranks 40th among US public universities granted utility patents in 2022

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas ranked 40th among public institutions in the Top 100 U.S. Universities Granted Utility Patents in 2022, a new list published by the National Academy of Inventors. The list showcases universities that play a pivotal role in advancing the innovation ecosystem within and beyond the United States. KU ranked 65th among all universities.
“Patents are keenly important to promoting innovation, with proprietary rights to an invention being the key ‘seed’ from which a new venture may grow,” said Clifford Michaels, executive director of the KU Center for Technology Commercialization. “The inclusion of KU on this year’s NAI list of top 100 U.S. universities recognizes not just the number and quality of new inventions coming from KU’s research community, but also the commitment of KU in support of innovative research.”
A utility patent, which is typically referred to as a patent for invention, is a type of intellectual property protection granted by a government authority for a new or improved product, process, machine or composition of matter. Utility patents are a fundamental tool for inventors and companies to protect their ideas and inventions, giving them a competitive edge in the marketplace, encouraging innovation and contributing to technological progress — which ultimately drives economic growth.
In the last three years, KU filed a total of 406 new patent applications and had 240 patents issued. This activity comes from a diverse group of academic schools and departments across all campuses and includes research and innovations in biotechnology, engineering, therapeutics, digital technologies, physical science, education, software and medical devices.
Since 2013, NAI has published the Top 100 Worldwide Universities list. The Top 100 U.S. Universities list is the NAI’s newest ranking and is meant to provide a more focused view of the national innovation landscape, featuring contributions by U.S. academic institutions. NAI’s Top 100 lists are created using calendar year data provided by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Top 100 placement includes all named assignees listed on the patent.
“As a U.S.-based national academy, it is important to us not only to showcase innovation happening on the broader world stage, but here at home as well. Invention has been part of the American experience since the country’s inception, with intellectual property being protected in the Constitution,” said Jamie Renee, executive director of NAI. “The Top 100 U.S. universities list allows us to recognize and celebrate the commitment these universities have to the American tradition of invention and protection of IP.”

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Four KU faculty members awarded Keeler Professorships

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas has announced that four professors have been awarded Keeler Intra-University Professorships, which provide faculty the opportunity to expand their scholarship and foster cross-disciplinary collaboration.
The 2023-24 Keeler Professorship recipients:
1. Shawn Bitters, Department of Visual Art
2. Phillip Drake, Department of English
3. Margaret Kelley, Department of American Studies
4. Crispin Williams, Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures
The Keeler Professorships have supported the professional growth of tenured professors since the early 1980s by allowing relief from departmental duties for a semester.
“The Keeler Family Intra-University Professorship provides KU faculty with the opportunity to collaborate across disciplines and engage in groundbreaking interdisciplinary conversations,” said Amy Mendenhall, vice provost for faculty affairs. “The work pursued by faculty in these professorships strengthens the greater KU academic community by building ties and fostering our collective connections.”
About the recipients
Shawn Bitters
Shawn Bitters, associate professor of visual art, will be actively involved in geological field research this fall to enrich his creative work. Bitters will be working alongside Michael Halford Taylor, a KU professor of geology specializing in mountain formation. In their collaboration, Bitters will be involved with techniques for studying the natural world and different avenues to contribute artistically to the research process. Under Halford’s guidance, Bitters will study processes of scientific observation, data collection and analysis in the field. Through this experience, Bitters seeks to inform his work with a scientific perspective.
Bitters joined the KU faculty in 2005.
Bitters said, “Participating in future field research trips will cement the practical aspects of how a field geologist works. Like many artists, I am a kinetic learner. And, as an art professor, kinetic learning is the basis of how we teach. It is necessary to participate repeatedly in the processes before I can successfully adopt and adapt these methods to my research. As I work, I will discover how to utilize them, both practically and metaphorically, to create new art.”
Phillip Drake
Phillip Drake, associate professor of English, looks forward to a productive fall semester where he plans to enhance the courses he teaches. He intends on immersing himself in economic concepts and models as well as continuing to work on his book “Parasite Economies.” This is part of an effort to enrich his courses with more nuanced theoretical frameworks. In addition to building upon his knowledge to support his Marxism and Cultural Critique course, Drake plans to develop a new course exploring literary representations of value and market forces. He also seeks to promote precise, ethical use of economic ideas in the humanities.
Drake joined the KU faculty in 2015.
Drake said, “I am honored and thrilled to be selected for a Keeler Family Intra-University Professorship. Beyond my plan to better acquaint myself with theories of value and decision-making, I am excited for the opportunity to interact with faculty and students in the economics department.”
Margaret Kelley
Margaret Kelley, professor of American studies, will spend the fall semester researching the complex intersections of guns, art and culture in America. With the support of Kate Meyer, Spencer Museum of Art curator, and Emily Casey, assistant professor of American art & culture, Kelley will use material culture theory to analyze the historical and contemporary artistic representations of guns. She plans to establish a learning opportunity at the museum while also furthering scholarship on how guns have been depicted in art over time. By examining the symbolic themes and evolving portrayals of guns in American art, Kelley endeavors to build a deeper understanding of this complex subject.
Kelley joined the KU faculty in 2016.
Kelley said, “I am thrilled to be awarded the Keeler Professorship to study art history and guns in American art in collaboration with the Spencer Museum. I want to better understand the subject of my book in progress, women and guns, through representations of firearms in the American artistic tradition. Since coming to KU, I have been academically inspired and motivated by my experience with the museum’s collections, and I am looking forward to the new experiences, knowledge and connections that the fellowship will offer.”
Crispin Williams
Crispin Williams, associate professor of East Asian languages & cultures, looks forward to collaborative opportunities this year with KU’s linguistics faculty. Through this partnership, Williams plans to acquire a greater understanding of key linguistic concepts related to his scholarship on early Chinese script and language. With the guidance of linguistics colleagues, he plans to develop an innovative interdisciplinary course open to both EALC and linguistics students. The result of this collaboration will be an asset for Williams to foster supportive learning environments for undergraduate and graduate students engaged in both fields. In turn, this could pave the way for potential interdisciplinary research partnerships and grant applications.
Williams joined the KU faculty in 2005.
Williams said, “I’m greatly looking forward to working with colleagues in the linguistics department on interdisciplinary aspects of my research and teaching. My research focuses on the decipherment of the archaic Chinese script from the first millennium BCE, as found on excavated texts written on various media. Application of several subfields in linguistics, particularly phonology and morphology, is critical in deciphering this ancient script. This allows us to understand these texts, which shed much new light on the formative period of Chinese society and culture.”

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