College of Arts and Sciences
McElhaney earns a role in the big leagues
Molly McElhaney will graduate from Indiana Tech in May 2025 with a communication degree concentrating on sports media, but she is already knocking out of the park with the Cincinnati Reds.
Molly is a sales consultant with the Major League Baseball team, a role she has held since December 2023. Yes, that’s right. She has had a full-time role with the Reds since her sophomore year at Indiana Tech.
In 2023, Molly earned an internship in promotional events with the Reds where she helped coordinate pregame ceremonies, production of between-innings corporate sponsorships games, the annual Redsfest, a concert series featuring Lady A and many other events. When the 2023 season ended, she was invited to intern during the off-season for the Cincinnati Reds Community Fund, where she managed the MLB Fun at Bat program—a program that makes baseball accessible for underprivileged schools.
Impressed with her talents and professional growth, the Reds hired her for her current position, where she specializes in group sales, membership sales and premium game-day experiences. She enjoys this role because she is “constantly building rapport and relationships with current and potential clients, face to face as well as over the phone.”
Despite her initiative to wear the many different hats at the Cincinnati Reds, Molly said her education at Indiana Tech is what ultimately allowed her to be so successful in her career.
“The program emphasized effective communication, both written and verbal, which has been crucial in my current role. It also emphasized the importance of networking and building professional relationships,” Molly said. “Overall, my education at Indiana Tech provided me with a comprehensive skill set that has been directly applicable to my various roles within the Cincinnati Reds organization.”
Even though Molly was only physically at Indiana Tech for a short time before transitioning to being an online student, she emphasized how valuable and supportive the people have been to help her pursue her dreams.
“The amount of growth and success I’ve experienced during my years at Indiana Tech is truly special,” she said. “We truly are blessed here at Indiana Tech. I am so thankful for all of the faculty always in my corner, championing me to keep growing both personally and professionally.”
Dr. Anderson weighs in on caffeine use in international journal
Dr. Dawn Anderson, director of Indiana Tech’s exercise degree program, contributed to an article in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition: “Common questions and misconceptions about caffeine supplementation: what does the scientific evidence really show?” The article assesses and addresses 14 specific concerns about caffeine supplementation.
Lombardo elected to lead FWPD commission
Professor Dominic Lombardo, director of Indiana Tech’s criminal justice and pre-law program, was elected to serve as president of the Fort Wayne Police Department’s Merit Commission.
The other four Commissioners of the Fort Wayne Merit Commission have elected me to serve as President of the Commission, effective immediately. The FWPD administers testing for promotions to merit rank positions, creates billets for merit rank positions, and hears appeals on performance evaluations for police officers for the rank of Sergeant and Lieutenant.
College of Business
Rethinking the keys to meaning
By Julianne Will
Meaning is a complex matter. It incorporates the efforts of both the person trying to convey it and the person receiving it, with all their divergent references, contexts and ways of thinking.
If you ponder it for long, it’s really a wonder that we ever land on shared meaning at all.
Senior Kayra Kargin has spent quite a bit of time thinking about meaning. He’s graduating with a bachelor of science in marketing, but his coursework has included an expansive tour of philosophy and psychology. This served to fan the flames of his natural artistic spark.
And it led him to craft a new way of expression, where complex concepts—such as “details,” “tone,” “curiosity,” “responsibility”—are represented visually, by characters. He refers to this visual expression of meaning as “Keys.”
Under the broader title of “Flementis,” Kayra’s out-of-the-box—and even out-of-the-alphabet—way of thinking unlocks new approaches to the transmission of meaning in applications as diverse as modern art and organizational communications. He’s even writing a book to capture the breadth of his ideas.
But Kayra won’t be the first to tell you about it. Dr.Staci Lugar Brettin, professor of marketing and management and department chair, Marketing and Management at Indiana Tech, uncovered Kayra’s personal passion project in her class.
“He was working on his capstone project for Business Policy and Strategy, and during that time, he took a couple of entrepreneurship courses with me. He was always contributing. He was very engaged, asking intense questions about business models. Kayra was really thoughtful on how we could use business modeling to change the industry,” she says.
“And that’s when I first discovered that he had been working on this project. At that time, the output was not a book. The output was really the process. And so he was trying to figure out, since he was also in my marketing courses, how he could redesign the industry to be so much more innovative.”
A native of Turkey—Kayra came to Indiana Tech as a top student athlete in tennis—he’s found it difficult to secure an internship in advertising, already a competitive field without the challenge of a visa.
“So he wanted to redesign the model of the ad industry where everyone could have an opportunity, almost like open-source design—open source internships,” says Dr. Lugar Brettin. “One of the projects in Entrepreneurial Planning and Growth was that he needed to design some kind of a plan to innovate a business or an industry. So that’s when he coupled his design for this new model with advertising, where everyone learns from everyone else, and they rotate roles. That’s when I really saw him shine.”
Kayra’s vision for a new communications system builds upon itself. While each character can stand on its own as an idea, characters also can be combined to create theories. Kayra’s “Path Theory” is an example; it includes the concepts of ambition, blinded ego, connections, contentment, humblezation, lost, possibilities, unknown, power and curiosity.
And just as each concept in his language system has a character (or symblem, as Kayra calls them—a blend of symbol and emblem), Kayra also has created, with the help of AI, intricate circular drawings for each theory that incorporate all of the characters in that theory. He’s built a website to share his writing and artwork at flementis.net.
Kayra has a wide-ranging vision for the communication system that he’s constructed, including the book that he plans to self-publish in a few months, artwork and a clothing brand.
And with the support of Dr. Lugar Brettin, he’s identified business applications that are as innovative as his communications system.
For business settings, Kayra has visualized a new organizational dynamic in which carefully chosen “sages and visionaries” interact as symbiotic duos to propel a company in innovative directions. Lest ego or power get in the way of their success, “watchers” are tasked with recording the work of the duos for review and ongoing improvement.
The Harmonic Hierarchy Circuit, as Kayra has titled it, includes a number of his symblems as guiding concepts, including compass, proactive, beginner’s mind, connections, humility, transparency and social harmony.
This system could serve as a brainstorming and dynamic exercise during a corporate retreat designed around mission and vision; or a method of identifying new operational procedures and uncovering efficiencies; or even a radical new way of structuring a company that throws the traditional org chart out the window.
After establishing shared meaning within an organization, Kayra says, the company can share that outward with its market. “I think the symblems help to remember the meaning or what the company truly holds, in a way, and that has to start within the company,” he says.
Since childhood, Kayra writes at flementis.net, he’s felt “discontent with our educational systems, which seemed more intent on molding workers for society’s machinery rather than nurturing creators.”
It’s exciting to consider what else might take root within the rich soil of Kayra’s unconventional environment of thinking. But Kayra doesn’t want to make the conversation about him; rather, he prefers to be the pot from which the plant branches, he says.
Indiana Tech has provided the nurturing that Kayra needed to flourish. “Our athletic recruiting is so powerful at Indiana Tech, and it sets us apart,” says Dr. Lugar Brettin. “A lot of times a student will come for athletics and they’ll find their home at Indiana Tech, where they blossom in all the other areas that exist.
“He came because he had this amazing worldview, and he wanted to play and he got a scholarship. But in the classroom, we have the capacity to transform students in a way that a lot of the larger schools cannot,” Dr. Lugar Brettin continues. “So kind of scrapping what I planned for him in that entrepreneurship class and just saying you know what, you’re on a good path, let’s take that forward…that happens in smaller classes, where you’re focused on one student at a time. We really are a special university.”
Leading HR organization lauds Indiana Tech’s HR curriculum
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has endorsed the curriculum for Indiana Tech’s Bachelor of Science in Business Administration concentrating in human resources through December 2028.
SHRM is the world’s largest HR professional society, representing more than 340,000 members in 180 countries, and is considered the industry leader in HR professional development. Its endorsement comes after a thorough review of the university’s HR curriculum—a review that deemed it was in alignment with SHRM’s curriculum guidelines.
This degree program has an outstanding reputation for cultivating exceptional human resources professionals and launching successful careers. It has helped more than 500 Indiana Tech students pass the SHRM Certified Professional (SHRM-CP) exam—a competency-based certification exam that measures one’s ability to apply HR principles to real-life situations.
Talwar College of Engineering and Computer Sciences
Concrete ideas about reducing emissions
By Julianne Will
Unless you’re an engineer, architect or builder, you probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about concrete.
It’s just there, largely under foot or integrated into a larger structure, the whole of which you usually consider far more than its parts.
So you might not know that concrete production and use is one of the leading causes of global CO2 emissions, coming in at about 8 percent worldwide. It contributes far more CO2 globally than aviation fuel (at roughly 2.5 percent). If the concrete industry were a country, it would be the fourth largest emitter in the world, behind only China, India and the United States.
But a team of Indiana Institute of Technology students knows all of this and more. Further, they have ideas about how to address it.
The trio researched this major global problem alongside other world-class scholars aiming to solve thermodynamics challenges during the annual JUMP (Join the discussion, Unveil innovation, Make connections, Promote tech-to-market) into STEM building science competition.
The caliber of fellow competitors was high, including doctoral candidates and other students from engineering powerhouses such as Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Purdue University, University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
That didn’t stop the Indiana Tech team from securing a solid showing at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Jacob Ritchie and Lewis Roberts, part of the team tackling the concrete problem, paved a path all the way to the final round of the competition.
They weren’t alone: Senior Samuel Bodley reached the final round with his team’s green roof building solutions. Sam’s team was brainstorming topics when he came across the application of green roofs in Asia, where they’re growing rapidly — literally and figuratively — on new and existing development.
The team liked the idea of making cities green not only numerically, by capturing carbon and moderating the temperature of the building, but also visually, imbuing urban spaces with the hue of the plants and trees that make up a green roof. Their proposed solution includes tax benefits for the construction of green roofs and specialized training for industry professionals.
Sam also took top honors in the Elevator Pitch challenge at the competition.
“It was an outstanding accomplishment for the students,” says Dr. Thomas Tran, Indiana Tech assistant professor of mechanical engineering.
Students participated in the JUMP into STEM competition as a class project in Dr. Tran’s ME 4200 — Thermal Science Investigations course in the fall of 2023. They were tasked with identifying innovative solutions within challenge topics, such as “Keeping it Cool (Or Hot),” focusing on thermal energy storage for buildings to optimize energy utilization, enhance sustainability and increase resilience; or “You and Me, Carbon Free,” reducing carbon emissions from U.S. buildings (residential or commercial, new or existing).
Students’ problem statements were required to address embodied carbon emissions and/or operational carbon emissions. Their response had to lead to significant reductions in carbon emissions and increased affordability for stakeholders.
Overall, Dr. Tran’s class fielded six teams. Senior mechanical engineering students Lewis and Jacob along with Marley Jackson formed the Concrete Evolution team to assess methods of carbon dioxide recycling and injection during concrete manufacturing, reducing carbon emissions while maintaining the integrity of concrete properties.
And Sam worked with fellow senior mechanical engineering students and Eco Skyline team members Tobias Machourek and Nathan Boyleaims to identify ways to grow the number of green roofs (vegetated systems installed on building rooftops) sprouting in major cities to counteract mass carbon emissions.
While all of the students took part in their teams’ research to explore solutions and draft papers on their topics, only those who applied to land a paid summer internship could take part in the JUMP into STEM competition in Tennessee.
Sending two teams to the finals from Indiana Tech becomes even more impressive when you consider that just nine teams are selected from the 60 to 80 who enter nationwide.
This is the second year that Dr. Tran’s students have participated in JUMP into STEM. It’s also the second year that his students have been selected for internships at U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories. Last year, Kennedy Moonin, Lindsey Albrecht, Jacob Frogge and Dante Siracusa, all senior mechanical engineering students, formed the Repurpose EV Batteries team with the aim of upcycling old electric vehicle battery modules for backup power systems, targeting rural communities or communities with uncertain power supplies. They won first place in the It’s Electric challenge.
During the final competition, participants present their JUMP into STEM submissions to a panel of judges, learn about career paths in building science, network with experts in the field, tour the national lab and more.
The chance to test their chops against the top young researchers in the country is no small opportunity for Dr. Tran’s students. “It’s a different kind of knowledge they have right now compared to the graduate students,” he says. Clearly, however, they’re prepared to take the heat in the thermodynamics field.
Sam was surprised by what he learned not only about capturing carbon, but also about himself. “I think what impacted me most is really learning something about how to benefit the world,” Sam says. “They were showing me a lot of things that I wasn’t really thinking about.
“At first I was thinking mostly about the automotive field, but it opened my eyes to realize that you need to just branch out and look at a lot of different paths before you actually know what you want to do. I really liked that a lot. They’re teaching me a lot about what we learned in our classes and how they actually apply to the real world.”
“It’s just quite a unique experience,” says Lewis of the JUMP into STEM competition. “Not many people get to go to a national lab where loads of research is done and where basically the experts of the field are doing research. Getting to see that whole environment just is quite a unique experience that not many people can get.”
It also expanded his potential avenues for a career. “At first I just didn’t really know which sector I wanted to go in. Obviously, I had topics that I really liked in tech or thermodynamics,” Lewis says. “But then going through this competition, I realized how big of a thing needs to be done to change how we do things now and technologies that we need to reduce CO2 emissions and global warming before its devastating impact around the world. So this has really changed my mind about what I want to do.”
While the Indiana Tech competitors weren’t challenge winners this year, they so impressed the judges that each is being offered the chance to intern at one of the national laboratories. That will certainly cement, so to speak, their network of supporters and colleagues as they venture into the work world.
“The people there — honestly, it was kind of unreal,” Sam says. “Everybody always had a smile on their face. They knew that they were just doing something that helped (the environment) on such a big scale, and the connections were amazing. I already went on LinkedIn and connected with a lot of people there, and a lot of them were saying they could help me with anything I needed if I got in touch.”
“When we got picked to go to the finals, that got my interest piqued,” Lewis says. “Then I did a bit more research about the national lab and what they do. And then while we were there, it was amazing, because we got a tour of some places. The people we met — everyone was so friendly. It was like they were there to support you and make sure you did the best you could. So it was a good experience to have.”
About JUMP into STEM
The JUMP into STEM program is a building sciences competition for undergraduate and graduate students at U.S. colleges and universities. It began as a crowdsourcing community launched by Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2015 and now aims to attract bright students from a variety of majors to building science via annual challenges. Funded by the Department of Energy, it’s jointly run by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Team submissions are evaluated for technical potential, innovation, diversity and applicability. JUMP into STEM awards one winner from each of three challenge topics.
Challenge winners and additional teams are invited to compete in the JUMP into STEM Final Competition. Final competition winners receive a 10-week paid summer internship at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory or Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Cyber Warriors end season as 10th-best cyber defense team in the nation
Indiana Tech’s 2023-24 Cyber Warriors, from left to right. Back row: Coach Matt Hansen, Myles Nieman, Tim Bukowski, Zach Hampton, Nick Caulk, John Rudolph; Middle row: Bryce Murphy, Jeremy MacRoberts, Sam Regelbrugge, Tristan Lybarger, Riley Boroff; Front row: Martin Quintana, Garrett Bates, Vanessa Krueger, Peter Allison; Not pictured: Hayden LeFlech
Indiana Tech’s Cyber Warriors, the university’s cyber defense team, completed its Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) season ever over the weekend with a 10th-place finish at the national competition in San Antonio, Texas.
For the small-but-mighty Cyber Warriors, it’s the highest national ranking the squad has ever achieved and it finds itself standing among giants like the University of Texas, the University of Virginia, Brigham Young University, Oregon State University and California State Polytechnic University as the nation’s best.
“I am very proud of our performance at nationals. We started out strong and actually held first place for almost the first three hours of the two-day competition,” said Cyber Warriors coach Matt Hansen. “What hurt us was the fact we had the only roster in the competition with zero experience at the national level. When we return to nationals next year, we will be able to use this experience and the knowledge gained to our strategic advantage.”
Hansen said the Cyber Warriors were commended during the awards ceremony for their tenacity and positive professional attitudes. The director of the competition later followed up with an email to Hansen that echoed the sentiments extolled from the ceremony.
“The director said it was a pleasure working with the Cyber Warriors during the event and that we will always be welcome at the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition,” Hansen said. “That the national director went out of his way to tell me how much respect he has for our team makes me very proud.”
Members of this year’s Cyber Warriors team include Peter Allison, Garrett Bates, Riley Boroff, Timothy Bukowski, Nick Caulk, Zach Hampton, Vanessa Krueger, Hayden LaFlech, Tristan Lybarger, Jeremy MacRoberts, Bryce Murphy, Myles Nieman, Martin Quintana, Sam Regelbrugge and John Rudolph. Coach Hansen is an Indiana Tech alum who was a championship-winning Cyber Warrior himself during his time as a Tech student.
To get to this year’s national competition, the Cyber Warriors won its 10th straight and 17th overall Indiana Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition in January. They punched their ticket to San Antonio by winning the Midwest Regional in March, ousting perennial powerhouse and nemesis DePaul University in the process.
“The name we’ve made for ourselves on this stage is astounding, and I’m so proud of this program,” Hansen said. “For next season, our goal is to emerge as the best CCDC team from Indiana and the Midwest and have an even stronger showing at nationals.”
During collegiate cyber defense competitions, teams work to combat attempted network security breaches and related challenges that test their problem-solving, technical abilities and teamwork at every turn.
For five years running, every member of the Cyber Warriors has secured a job in their career field prior to graduating. Indiana Tech has also established a growing national reputation as a producer of top talent in the cybersecurity field, having recently been recognized as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense by the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.
Society of Manufacturing Engineers recognizes Indiana Tech
For a third straight year, Indiana Tech’s chapter of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) has been awarded Silver status. SME is an association of professionals, educators and students committed to promoting and supporting the manufacturing industry.
To attain this status, university chapters must show acumen in professional development, communications, advancement of manufacturing and merit. Indiana Tech’s chapter earned a stipend from SME to continue progressing in these areas.
In addition to SME, Indiana Tech has chapters of national professional organizations like the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). Membership within a professional organizations gives students a wide array of networking opportunities that will help them develop skills and enrich their careers.
STEAM Academy robotics club performs well at NRC, Joyner honored
In April, the Indiana Tech STEAM Academy’s Robotic Warriors Club (RWC) participated in the 38th annual National Robotics Challenge (NRC) in Marion, Ohio.
The NRC is a competition designed to provide students of all ages and levels of study the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of manufacturing processes, controls, robotics and other technologies through competitive engineering contests. Students are judged on their application of technology principles, engineering concepts, and ability to solve real-world problems through a team approach.
More than 1,300 students participated in 12 different competitions at four different levels. There were 486 robot entries from 13 states.
RWC members, who range from grades 7 through 12, worked diligently since September 2023 to build and program their robots in preparation for the NRC competition. When it came time to compete, 26 club members formed teams to enter 14 robots. The RWC claimed three Gold awards, three Silver awards and one Bronze award. RWC also received a nomination for the Honda Innovation Award, a prestigious recognition for the most innovative robot from each competition.
During the awards ceremony, former Indiana Tech physics professor Dr. Rex Joyner was honored by the NRC with the Hannemann Service Award for his long and continued dedication to robotics education.
In 1995, Joyner founded the RWC’s predecessor, Indiana Tech’s Explorer Post 2829. It was created to promoting engineering in general in the Fort Wayne area, with a particular emphasis on robotics. During its existence, the Post won nearly 200 awards at the NRC, including 54 gold awards and 11 Honda Innovation Award nominations. Joyner is now a volunteer with the RWC.
Here are the team entries and awards won at NRC by RWC teams.
Middle School Division:
Maze Bot
Gold- Bonnie Allyn, Mamie Allyn
Sumo
Honda Innovation Nominee- Sarah Maurer
High School Division
Rescue Robot Award
Gold- Gage Brown, Dawson Drewery, Finn Kaehr, Alya Bennett
Robot Problem Solving
Silver- Luke Ahlersmeyer
Maze Bot
Gold- Gus Allyn
Silver-Alexx Richarson, Donovan Cammelleri
Bronze- Gauge Brown, Dawson Drewery
Sumo
Silver- Andrew Langford
Nonplacement teams:
MS Maze Bot
Seth Bennett, Zeke Martin
Aizen Le, Enoch Richardson
Julian Riveria, Fox Martin
Joshua Braun, Ameilia Brown
HS Combat
Lucus Bowman, Titius Bemis, Isaiah Powers
Kiki Morrison, Conner Seewald, Zachary Braun
“One of the best things about the NRC is seeing the whole club come together and help each other out. Not only do the kids work together within their own teams, but they help out anyone and anywhere where they are needed. From helping carry or position robots, asking other schools for spare parts or tools, or even just moral support, attending the NRC definitely brings out the best in everyone. The bonus is all the new friendships and connections the kids make, as well as us parents!”
– Mary Brown, Robotic Warriors Club Parent