Released Time for Research & Creative Works (RTR)

Application Submission: November 1, 2020 – February 1, 2021

Department Chair/Program Coordinator Review: February 2, 2021 – February 9, 2021

Departmental Committee Review Deadline: February 16, 2021

University-wide Committee Review and Meeting: February 17, 2021 – March 18, 2021

Committee meets Thursday, March 18

Report to President: March 22, 2021

Awards announced in March

Expanding the Nantucket Historical Association Research Collaborative
Ed Johnston, Robert Busch School of Design

"The overarching goal of this release time for research project is to expand innovative design research opportunities for design students with the Nantucket Historical Association (NHA) and partnering organizations. Two objectives to accomplish this expansion include (1) engaging further in collaborative research projects and (2) pursuing external funding, publication, and strengthening the potential for future partnerships by connecting with NHA’s partnering organizations. This project aligns with Kean’s mission in its dedication to student learning and expansion of collaborative opportunities with educational and community organizations in national arenas.
 
Following Dr. Toney’s directive to faculty to engage students in research and creative work projects, Professor Johnston is collaborating with Associate Dean Rose Gonnella to develop a research collaborative with the Nantucket Historical Association in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Established in 1894, the NHA preserves and interprets the history of Nantucket through its programs, collections, and properties, in order to promote the historic significance of the island and its people and foster an appreciation of it among all audiences. This NHA Research Collaborative will support student learning by involving design students in collaborative research, scholarship, creative work, and innovative uses of technology while simultaneously enhancing students' skills in professional areas. Efforts to begin this collaborative have started in 

Spring 2020 across courses within the graphic design curriculum, including a special topics course taught by Prof. Johnston and a GD 1996 GD Research Experience course.

In collaboration with Associate Dean Gonnella, Johnston is opening the opportunity of connecting with partnering organizations for additional student research opportunities, including but not limited to the Nantucket Preservation Trust, Center for Coastal Studies, Maria Mitchel Association, and University of Massachusetts Field Station.  
 
There are multiple opportunities for expanding research projects at the NHA, including the creation of a visualization of a historic harbor, an immersive experience of a whale rescue, and interactive wayfinding experiences. These opportunities are detailed in the Objectives and Outcomes section below and are proposed to begin with a Students Partnering with Faculty award this upcoming summer. The NHA Research Collaborative will empower students to collaborate with faculty to advance the study of experience design within the context of immersive environments in a museum setting. Thank you for your consideration of this proposal."

Caremanag-e: Enhancing the Capacity of Care Managers
Daehan Kwak, School of Computer Science and Technology

Individuals living with Severe Mental Illness (SMI), Substance Use Disorders (SUD) and/or physical health challenges are disproportionately vulnerable to and affected by social and environmental factors that limit progress towards recovery, health and wellbeing. Despite the support of community resources and care services these individuals are challenged in the complex navigation to access such resources and services. Care Managers are recognized in serving a critical role in behavioral health care settings in promoting health and health equity in individuals with SMI, SUD, and/or physical health challenges to help address their needs to increase positive health outcomes. Care Managers embrace a whole person, consumer centered, integrated approach to care to identify areas of need and help consumers in addressing social and environmental factors that increase the likelihood of positive health outcomes. This includes the complex navigation of community resources, exploring opportunities to bridge individuals to needed services, and creating linkages.  However, the majority of care managers that deliver care management services are with minimal training and experience. Care Managers do not require formal training and often need consultation when providing guidance to consumers. Seeking guidance from supervisors and getting back to the consumer is a lengthy process and supervisors are not always available when guidance is needed. In addition, for the individuals living with SMI/SUD, there is limitation on how they navigate through resources and services which limits the progress towards their recovery, health and wellbeing.  Thus, the goal of this project is to promote the efficacy of Care Managers and provide solutions for easy access to resources and services to individuals living with SMI/SUD. We seek to develop Caremanage, a web based interactive decision tree, designed for use by care managers to increase their capacity to deliver services that will address social and environmental challenges that are impediments to wellness and recovery. This will guide Care Managers through a decision-making process embedded in a best practice framework enabling them to optimally address social or environmental impediments to care. Currently available technology only offers searchable resource databases. Caremanag-e will have an impact on identifying interventions based on the needs and circumstances of each individual client thereby improving client outcomes. This project is under partnership with CPC Behavioral Healthcare and Kean University Computer Science and Occupational Therapy. Kean students will have the opportunity to be involved with this research and developing real world healthcare applications.

The Fourth Edition of Advertising by Design (John Wiley & Sons)
Robin Landa, Robert Busch School of Design

"The two main goals of my research project are to research and write the fourth edition of my book, Advertising by Design (Wiley), and to use that research to fully update the Robert Busch School of Design (RBSD) BFA: Graphic Design/Interactive Advertising academic program.  
 
Since John Wiley & Sons published the third edition of Advertising by Design in 2016, and since I last revised the entire BFA: Graphic Design/Interactive Advertising academic program, the advertising discipline dramatically changed. The migration in distribution of advertising messages from broadcast TV and print to online media has changed how art directors and designers must conceive, design and execute ideas. It also changed what advertising design educators need to know and how advertising design educators need to prepare advertising design students for what will be required of them in the
profession. In the next (fourth) edition of Advertising by Design, I will address these new needs resulting in a comprehensive resource for university courses, as the past and current editions have proven to be, as well as an essential guide and reference for advertising design curricula. In this edition, there will be an emphasis on creating unique content for each specific media channel to deliver engaging experiences to target audiences. My preliminary findings show this is the approach to advertising that employers want to see evidenced in student portfolios as well as utilized in the profession. This research will ensure Kean students’ continued success. In 2019, thirty-three of my students entered and thirty-two won spots at a prestigious advertising career fair sponsored by Verizon and McCann Worldwide.
 
In light of recent rapid changes in the discipline and the new demands by the advertising industry for people with new skill sets, now I must conduct research and provide new content in order to best serve and inform our students and advertising design education in general; professors assign my book worldwide. My proposed project is designed to fill a contemporary void, to provide content and methodology to expand advertising art directors and designers’ skill sets. My principal hypothesis is: practitioners and students must approach advertising by thinking of it as unique content creation (entertainment, information, or utilities) rather than as artifact creation or mere marketing. This is necessary because advertising not only competes with other advertising for people’s attention, but it competes with all other content online, in print, on television and everywhere else. Employers are demanding many new digital skills (software and design fluency for web, mobile, motion, and new methods for print) from advertising designers as well as new approaches to concept generation, creativity, and how advertising can engage people and function with efficacy across multiple media channels.  
 
The fourth edition of Advertising by Design will be unique and will fill a void in advertising art direction and design education. In this book, I will provide: • Innovative methodologies for creative and strategic idea generation across all media channels • Content that covers advertising from creative strategy to storytelling to multiple-media solutions • Cutting-edge view of advertising as unique content creation  • Social cause marketing strategies • Comprehensive design and art direction pedagogy for multi-platform advertising campaigns • Interviews with esteemed creative directors and case studies of award-winning work
 
I am solely responsible for evaluating and updating the curriculum of all of the advertising courses in the Robert Busch School of Design. I do this on a continuing basis; however, preparing the new content for the fourth edition of Advertising by Design will enable me to utilize my extensive research to fully update the Robert Busch School of Design (RBSD) BFA in Interactive Advertising academic program as well as write a stand-alone BFA in Advertising for the Michael Graves College, ensuring relevance and continued distinction. 

This project directly impacts the RBSD curriculum. Our advertising design students seek entry-level employment based on the merits of the work in their senior portfolios. Not only do advertising design majors in universities need new skill sets, they must convincingly demonstrate those conceptual and design skills in their senior portfolios, evidence of their ability to generate relevant and creative ideas for social causes and brands in the connected age. The responsibility falls to me to ensure our advertising design students’ work is cutting-edge. Based on my research and pedagogy, Verizon and McCann Worldwide awarded 32 of 100 spots at their 2019 Career Fair, spots won via a tri-state competition, to my students! Due to the outstanding work presented by my students at the Career Fair, my advertising majors received internships, mentorships, and jobs and my current students just were invited to participate in the 2020 Verizon McCann Career Fair. Kean University was the only NJ university selected to participate.
 
Professor Leslie Haines, Middle Tennessee State University, reviewed the third edition of Advertising by Design in the Journal of Advertising Education; she wrote: “Having taught an advertising design
class for many years now, I have struggled to find the right text that would cover concept creation, compositional skills, typography and technical know-how to current advertising challenges in the digital age. With its colorful, current examples, insightful interviews and relevant and thorough content, this book is the winning text for me.”
 
About the current edition of Advertising by Design, Drew Neisser, Founder and CEO, Renegade Advertising NY, wrote: ""The most enlightening textbook on advertising I've ever seen. A must-read for any student of the ad biz."" Paul Renner, Global Creative Director, Publicis, wrote: ""While the blank piece of paper is exciting, it can also be a very scary place. Robin Landa has created a valuable tool for jump-starting the creative process across all platforms. This book is a must-read for beginners and seasoned veterans.""
 
A major outcome of implementing and disseminating my ongoing research is that the vast majority of KU advertising design majors have experienced great success in finding rewarding employment, starting out in such agencies and companies as Google, McCann Worldwide, Disney, Grey, Ogilvy, Huge, Razorfish, We Are Social, KBS+P, among many other top companies. Their student and professional work wins national and international awards from the AIGA, The One Club, Webby Awads, ADCNJ, ADCGlobal, PRINT, HOW, AI/AP, and more. I am committed to ensuring our students are successful. Kean University offers the only academic program in Interactive Advertising Design in the state of New Jersey and it is competitive with the top BFA programs in New York and the world.  
 
Anaya Multimedia published both the first and second editions of Advertising by Design in Spanish. Most recently, Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House published the third edition of Advertising by Design in Chinese in 2018. Creatividad Y Sociedad published my preliminary research for the third edition of Advertising by Design, “The Creative Process in Advertising Design: New Ways to Think in the Digital Age” in the peer-reviewed journal, Creativity and Design, number 22, August 2014."

Life cycle assessment of algae production with the Rotating Biofilm Reactor in a wastewater treatment plant
Dongyan Mu, School of Environmental and Sustainability Sciences

"As sustainable energy attracts increasing interests in today’s society, the microalgae became a promising source of energy to replace petroleum-based fuels or crop based oil, such as corn ethanol. Despite the many benefits, there are still concerns over resource use, environmental and human health impacts caused by algal biofuel production, especially in the algae cultivation and dewatering stages where electricity, nutrients, and water is used for algae cultivation, pumping, mixing, and water removing. In order to reduce resource use, a technology, Rotating Algae Biofilm Reactor (RARB) has been developed to grow algae. The facility consists of several vertical plastic films for algae to attach and grow. When the algae are matured, they fall off the film as scrapes for harvesting (shown in Figure 1).
 
The project proposes to conduct a life cycle assessment (LCA) to examine the environmental impacts of algae production with the Rotating Algae Biofilm Reactor (RABR) developed in China. The study will focus on analyzing impacts associated with algae growing and processing stage (cradle-to-gate), and comparing impacts of RABR to impacts of other algae cultivation technologies including the open raceway pond (ORP) and the multilayer photobioreactor (PBR). Key factors that will cause environmental impacts will be identified and strategies that could improve the environmental performance will be proposed.  

 The scholarly merits of the project lie in multiple folds. First, the study will improve our understanding of the environmental impacts of algae cultivation with RABR, which is still limited in current literature. Second, data used in LCA analysis will be mostly based on the actual data collected from a pilot-scale facility, which could provide more accurate analysis than using data from the literature review. Third, the project presents an international collaboration in a study of a novel technology. Its results will attract attention in both LCA and algae research areas. Broadly, the project will help to promote the application of algae as an energy source, which can reduce the use of petroleum fuels and mitigate global warming.
 
The project would add a new area of my LCA research in algal biofuel production, with which it can keep me working on the cutting edge area in algae growing, application and beneficial uses. The project partners in China are both leaders in the research, cultivation, and processing of algae, and we have been collaborating for more than four years and published several papers in high-end journals. This year I was awarded a NSF grant to conduct LCA for vegetable production in aquaponics. I plan to further extend my research to the algae-fish-vegetable aquaponic system and use my experience collected in this project to apply for future grants, even International collaboration grants from NSF in China.  
 
The LCA was added as a research area in 2014 when I joined the Kean University. With support from the University, I have conducted several LCA projects with internal and external grants, and have published manuscripts in peer-review journals. The project is expected to continue presenting the Kean University in the LCA academic area. Also, because the project will involve Chinese industries and researchers, it could consolidate international connections and promote the reputation of Kean University in China. Finally, the project can help to address the LCA area in the SESS curriculum by involving students working for the research project and by presenting the results in classes and conferences. Students could use the project as a chance to practice research skills, which will be beneficial to their academic success and future careers."

Molecular diversity of fungal communities of dead wood
Maria Shumskaya, Biological Sciences

Introduction Forest and park ecosystems include multiple communities of living organisms. Dead wood is a significant component of any forest biomass and a valuable habitat and food source for the associated organisms. From the numerous fundamental studies in natural ecosystems, it is apparent that richness and stability of natural communities depends on microbial species including fungi (Boddy et al. 2007, Stokland et al. 2012). Fungal diversity Fungi belong to a separate kingdom of living organisms and their body structure differs from animals significantly. Most of the fungi that live in dead wood look like threads or are nearly invisible and do not have any distinctive morphology. Dead wood mycobiome have been experimentally studied for several decades (Rayner & Boddy 1988, Boddy et al. 2007) without a significant breakthrough, however, modern DNA research techniques such as genome sequencing greatly simplify species identification. Thus, current molecular biology techniques make new microscopic fungal species being discovered every day. At present, the necessary information on the structure and functioning on fungal communities in North American landscapes, and especially in urban areas, is far away from completion (Moose, 2019). Biodiversity and park management Wood-decaying fungi are significantly influenced by management practices in the landscapes. Heavy management of urban forests and parks, such as cutting dead wood or hollow wood and seasonal removing of foliage and branches, may affect the microbiome of a natural forest community. Despite of common belief that rotten wood is a disease that can harm healthy trees; most of the organisms decaying wood are specific to dead plants and are not able to attack living trees and plants. It is shown that a heavily managed forest loses up to 25% of biodiversity once dead wood is removed (Bobiec, 2005). The magnitude of our management impact, as well as the vulnerability of individual species remains largely unknown. It is unclear if the current park management practices, focused on trees and animals to preserve urban biodiversity, actually preserve the microbial communities and the overall health of the ecosystem. We hypothesize that fungi and mycobiome-oriented park management can improve the stability and diversity in the urban forests and parks. Objectives: The aim of this project is to compare species of dead wood inhabitants among managed and unmanaged forests around in New Jersey, as well as heavily managed city parks (campuses, backyards etc.) to identify critical communities and microhabitats in need of focused management and conservation. Projected outcomes: We are working on a database of fungal species growing on dead wood, to identify and compare various decomposes in different environments so we will be able to compare the communities and assess the species richness and the health of the ecosystems across the NJ state. The database itself is shared online at inaturalist.org (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/saproxylic-fungi-of-new-jersey) and is available for the Global Biodiversity Information Center (www.gbif.org,  see the publications list) for the world research community. We upload new information constantly as we progress through identification. We also perform statistical analysis of the studied communities, and develop new techniques to assess dead wood fungi diversity in a specific area. New Jersey localities where the sampling was performed are depicted on Figure 1. Forty to sixty samples were collected from each site.