Fellow:Maggie Brown
Serving as UIF Since: Fall 2018
School: Wichita State University
What she does now: Sophomore in Aerospace Engineering with a minor in Mathematics
What Does That Mean: She is learning how airplanes work
Contact Her About: design thinking, space
Email: mxbrown18@shocker.wichita.edu
Phone: (620) 200-0332
Maggie Brown is a University Innovation Fellows at Wichita State University. She is a sophomore studying Aerospace Engineering with a minor in Mathematics. Since she was young, Maggie has shown an interest in space exploration and travel. This interest lead her to wanting to become an engineer and later introduced her to design thinking.
Maggie first found an interest in using design thinking during her first semester at Wichita State when she took the freshman seminar Introduction to Technology and Innovation. This course came with the requirement to use the design thinking process, which was taught in class, to come up with a product. She and her team created a revolutionary doorstop called Lyfelock that was created as an extra barrier to be put in place during an emergent hostile situation in a school setting. The team was one of the five teams to qualify for the final round of the Koch Innovation Challenge. In the end, Lyfelock won the People’s Choice award.
Since joining UIF, Maggie has been working on a project called Shocker Study Spaces. While interviewing students at Wichita State, she noticed many students said they were going to the same two locations on campus to study, but not really enjoying being there. Upon further investigation, it was realized that there were many other places to study on campus, students just didn’t know those places were there. Shocker Study Spaces will create maps of campus to raise awareness of these great study places so that students can truly use the space given to them.
Outside of UIF, Maggie is involved in several activities. She a member of Gamma Phi Beta as well as the Honors College. She spent her freshman year living the in the Engineering Living Learning Community, which is a floor of the dorms that is made entirely of engineers so that students can get to know each other and support each other in classes. She is also an Engineering Ambassador which allows her to tell prospective engineering students about her experiences at Wichita State.