Impact, Innovation and Real-World Experience Highlighted at the Student Fellowship Showcase

Woman smiling while standing behind podium. There is a microphone to her side and a laptop in front of her. The podium has a block M and says Center for Academic Innovation, University of Michigan.

Sean Corp, Communications Lead

The University of Michigan Center for Academic Innovation celebrated the energy, intellect, and imagination of Student Fellows at the ninth Student Fellowship Showcase. The event featured an afternoon of lightning talks and an interactive poster session, offering a compelling look at how students are helping to shape the future of education at U-M and around the world.

This year’s presentations highlighted projects spanning the center’s work, including educational technology tools, research, online learning, extended reality, learning experience design, and more. Students from across campus work at the center in a number of ways, and their individual projects reflected that diversity, ranging from designing accessibility features for online courses to developing AI-enhanced recommendation tools. However, the common thread was clear – Student Fellows were actively contributing to solving real educational challenges that impact learners on and off campus.

Shaping Our World

In his opening remarks, James DeVaney, founding executive director of the center, said that in his recent work travels, he ran into a number of former U-M Student Fellows. One works in educational policy in Washington, D.C., one who was building VR experiences for higher ed institutions, and another who founded an ed tech company.

Photo of James DeVaney wearing a blue suit — James DeVaney

“This program doesn’t just prepare students for the world; they’re actively shaping it,” said DeVaney, who is also a special advisor to the president and associate vice provost for academic innovation.

These are highly sought after positions, DeVaney said, with several hundred students applying for the dozens of available Student Fellow roles at the center each academic year. Since the program launched in 2015, the center has employed 420 Student Fellow. This academic year, there are 73 Fellows from 11 of U-M’s 19 schools and colleges are being mentored by 27 supervisors at the center.

Many of this year’s Fellows tackled the complexity of modern digital learning environments. Students with roles in online learning and learning experience design reimagined how to deliver inclusive, accessible education at scale. Student Fellows working on the center’s portfolio of educational technology tools discussed working alongside developers to align user needs with technological solutions.

Other Student Fellows detailed how they explore learning data in powerful ways, evaluating the impact of professional writing tools, mapping learner behaviors, or applying AI models to expand access and equity in course recommendations.

“Our Student Fellows hail from all over the university,” said Roderick Simmons, the student engagement and experience lead at the center. “They bring creativity, curiosity, and passion to the center every day, and we wouldn’t be where we are without them.”

Woman standing next to poster pointing out details of their project while a person listens.

Grounded in Mentorship and Experience

The Student Fellowship program is about more than just a part-time job for U-M students. It is a launchpad for student growth and an opportunity to do impactful work not often available on campus. Far from hypothetical or academic exercises, these projects were embedded in CAI’s strategic priorities, making student contributions both visible and essential.

“The fellowship is not just an internship—it’s a combination of work and mentoring,” said Nani Wolf, design manager at the center.

It’s also an opportunity to get hands-on experience in fields many students are eager to explore after graduation.

“It allows them to combine skills they learn in their academic career with skills that are much more difficult to hone in the classroom,” said James Alexander, software ambassador lead. “This fellowship allows a student to really get to the cutting edge of innovation in ways that I think are uncommon and potentially impossible to do elsewhere on campus.”

Man with glasses smiles while standing at a podium. There is an open laptop in front of him and a microphone to the side. The block M and Center for Academic Innovation is visible on the podium. — Roderick Simmons, student experience and engagement lead, speaks to the audience at the Student Fellowship Showcase.

That sentiment was often reflected by the Student Fellows as they looked back on their projects and their experience at the center.

“There were a lot of opportunities I didn’t expect,” said Regis Haynes, student software ambassador fellow. “The fellowship did show me things that I could potentially do in the future that I’m actually more interested in now than what I was interested in before doing the fellowship.”

“The fellowship has shaped my professional and interpersonal growth by allowing me to experiment and grow in my field of work and really find and zone in on what I want to do,” said Haley Tolan, XR Student Fellow.

Across all teams and topics, the showcase affirmed the center’s model of innovation: one that sees students as co-creating the future of education for the benefit of learners at U-M and around the globe.