{"id":28198,"date":"2025-05-16T13:09:29","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T17:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/?p=28198"},"modified":"2025-05-16T14:41:38","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T18:41:38","slug":"marshall-university-icenter-names-four-new-innovation-catalysts-to-support-strategic-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/2025\/05\/marshall-university-icenter-names-four-new-innovation-catalysts-to-support-strategic-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Marshall University iCenter names four new Innovation Catalysts to support strategic growth"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Marshall University\u2019s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (iCenter) has selected four faculty members for its third cohort of Innovation Catalysts, a pioneering initiative designed to train members of the higher education community in design thinking. This problem-solving methodology emphasizes human-centered, creative approaches to addressing complex challenges.<\/p>\n<p>The newly appointed Innovation Catalysts are:<\/p>\n<p>Carol Smith \u2013 professor and coordinator of the Violence, Loss, and Trauma (VOLT) Certificate, Counseling Department<br \/>\nCasey Baker \u2013 department chair and associate professor, Accountancy &amp; Legal Environment<br \/>\nJohn Sammons \u2013 associate director, Marshall University Institute for Cyber Security<br \/>\nSarah Walton \u2013 assistant professor and director of Digital Humanities, English Department<\/p>\n<p>Inspired by a similar initiative at financial technology company Intuit, the Innovation Catalyst program aligns with Marshall for All, Marshall Forever, the university\u2019s strategic plan. It supports key priorities including student success, affordability and institutional agility in meeting evolving student needs.<\/p>\n<p>Each Catalyst in the spring 2025 cohort focused on a project aligned with their area of expertise, including graduate education, undergraduate student &#8211; faculty mentoring, cybersecurity education and digital humanities. Participants completed an intensive, semester-long training in design thinking, led by Maddy Branham, interim assistant director of the iCenter. In addition to learning new tools and techniques, they also applied their skills to lead design thinking projects within their own departments.<\/p>\n<p>The cohort was formally recognized for each member&#8217;s achievements at a reception held April 29 at the Brad D. Smith Center for Business and Innovation.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marshall University\u2019s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (iCenter) has selected four faculty members for its third cohort of Innovation Catalysts, a pioneering initiative designed to train members of the higher education community in design thinking. This problem-solving methodology emphasizes human-centered, creative approaches to addressing complex challenges. The newly appointed Innovation Catalysts are: Carol Smith \u2013 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":239,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-releases"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/239"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28198"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28204,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28198\/revisions\/28204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}