Chaminade University of Honolulu

Office of Sponsored Programs

Sparking Sustainability Innovation in Students

A cutting-edge program at Chaminade aimed at sparking innovation in students through sustainability entrepreneurship opportunities was selected to receive a $300,000 non-competitive increase in its federal grant, underscoring the importance of the effort and its impact in the community.

The ’Inana Innovators Program was originally funded with $600,000 in 2022 from the Minority Business Development Administration and the additional funding allows the program to be extended through 2025.

Principal Investigator Helen Turner, Ph.D., professor of Biology and research director at Chaminade’s CIFAL Honolulu Center, said the program is focused on attracting the next generation to sustainability-focused tech opportunities and growing the innovation sector in Hawai’i and the Pacific Islands.

“When you look at the long-term goals for Hawai’i’s economy, there are a lot of conversations about the defense sector, tourism, agriculture—those traditional mainstays,” Turner said.

“In addition to growing large new sectors like clean energy and aquaculture, we need to focus on developing individual entrepreneurs. Growing the innovation sector means starting early—with programs that teach both the mechanics of entrepreneurship and build the confidence to try.”

Federal funding for the ’Inana Innovators Program covers student compensation for innovation internships, entrepreneurship courses, and other salary support and activities.

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Mariane Uehara, ’Inana Innovators sustainability entrepreneurship coordinator at Chaminade, said participating students are excited about bringing new solutions to longstanding sustainability challenges, from climate change to the proliferation of plastic waste. In addition to courses and internships, the program offers valuable opportunities for students to get mentorship from industry experts.

Students are even challenged to create their own apps to showcase their work.

“Sustainability and entrepreneurship are big words,” Uehara said, adding, “The only way to get these things done is by doing it. Entrepreneurship is about having courage and excitement to solve problems. The tools and skills to do that, that’s what we want to teach and spark.”

Program participant Kyle-Jacob La’akea Gamiao ‘26 is working to develop an app called Lāʻau Friends. He said users will be able to use the app to identify native plants, get details on cultural protocols and practices, and serve as a platform to share stories and indigenous knowledge.

“The main goal is to do all of this in a fun and interactive way that entices not only our target demographic—children and educators—but people of all ages and places,” he said. “The app will function as a way to preserve Hawaiian culture, inform others about ways to take care of the ‘āina, and serve as a possible framework for other parts of the Pacific to use as well.”

Gamiao said during the Fall semester, his work with the ’Inana Innovators Program included everything from developing an AI chatbot to animating a character for his app to learning about how to attract sustainable funding for a project.

“I’ve learned how to be flexible but ethical in how I solve problems that approach me,” he said. “I’ve learned how to work with others and to outsource during the ideation process. I’ve also learned to balance flexibility and determination.”

Gamiao is pursuing a degree in Environmental Science and hopes to go on to graduate studies.

He also plans to continue developing Lāʻau Friends.

For Uehara, the ’Inana Innovators Program is about showing all students—from many different backgrounds—that they have the power to apply their talents and skills to society’s shared sustainability challenges.

“All of us could use an entrepreneurial mindset,” she said.

The `Inana Innovators program is funded by MBDA grant #MB22OBD8020275-T1. You can reach Principal Investigator Dr. Helen Turner at [email protected].

Chaminade Partners on Cutting-edge AI Research

Project seeks to leverage AI to advance health equity

Chaminade University is a proud collaborator with the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) at the University of Hawai’i on cutting-edge work designed to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to advance health equity and research diversity in Hawai’i and the Pacific.

Chaminade will contribute to a JABSOM-led project that recently received a $500,000 Phase II award from the National Institutes of Health’s AIM-AHEAD (Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity) program.

The work is aimed at using AI to enhance public health and reduce disparities, and the Hawai’i researchers plan to do that by deploying student researchers for new opportunities and “skilling up” AI experts so they can then serve as “navigators” for key stakeholders.

Dr. Alex Stokes is the principal investigator of the project at JABSOM and will collaborate closely with Dr. Helen Turner, research director at Chaminade’s CIFAL Honolulu Center, and her team.

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Turner said Chaminade is a key partner with the University of Hawai’i and the national AIM-AHEAD consortium on the ARCH project, which stands for AI Resource Concierge for Healthcare.

“The ‘resource concierge’ is a web gateway for researchers, community, healthcare providers and policymakers to access AI/ML tools, datasets and the training and technical assistance needed to use them in support of their missions in health equity,” Turner said.

Dr. Helen Turner
Dr. Helen Turner

Turner added the JABSOM and Chaminade teams implemented a Phase I ARCH pilot in 2023-24 that offered AI resources to healthcare stakeholders, conducted a landscape needs assessment survey, and trained a new class of “AI navigators” to assist healthcare users in understanding the potential of AI to reduce health equity.

The team also started proof-of-concept research projects applying AI to health equity challenges, such as diabetes and PTSD, with collaborators from Hawai’i, American Samoa and Aotearoa.

“The successful ARCH-Hawaii pilot was selected for a competitive ‘Phase II’ to take it national, which is a wonderful development ” said Turner, adding the Chaminade team—which in addition to Turner, as principal investigator of an NSF Alliances grant, also includes Dr. Catherine Brockway and Connor Flynn—will contribute to the next phase of the AIM AHEAD project by implementing a national training curriculum (deploying the CIFAL Center’s UN short course model) to “skill up” AI navigators.

Those navigators will then help stakeholders to apply AI to their health equity projects.

Additionally, the grant will help support new opportunities for student researchers, including internships, a “health equity hackathon,” and other health equity projects during the school year.

Interested in learning more about the grants mentioned in this article?

Harnessing the Power of Supercomputers

In an innovative summer research institute, Chaminade students used data science to tackle big research questions.

For four intensive weeks this summer, 25 Chaminade students used supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center to analyze complex data sets. They were looking to test hypotheses to complex research questions. And along the way, they got valuable hands-on experience in data science, one of the nation’s fastest-growing fields in a long list of sectors, from climate science to healthcare.

The Alliance Supporting Pacific Impact through Computational Excellence (ALL-SPICE) Data Science Summer Institute allows students to take a deep dive into their research interests, giving them access to tools and supercomputers that can help synthesize complex data sets into understandable, manageable variables.

“This is not theoretical learning,” says Connor Flynn ’21, a data scientist with Chaminade’s School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. Flynn participated in ALL-SPICE as a student and now serves as a group leader. “This is literally experiential since some of the students’ research projects require that they go to actual sites to verify what they’ve captured in their data is accurate.”

ALL-SPICE, now in its sixth year, is the product of an innovative Chaminade partnership with the University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Advanced Computing Center. ALL-SPICE is one of just four new National Science Foundation INCLUDES Alliances, and organizers say the ALL-SPICE program helps level the playing field for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) students, who are woefully underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

“The program is transformative for students from Hawaii and the US-affiliated Pacific, from Chaminade and many other colleges,” said Dr. Helen Turner, biology professor and principal investigator for Chaminade’s NSF ALL-SPICE program.

“Students come in with curiosity and a passion to solve their islands’ challenges. They leave as card-carrying data scientists with a high-demand skill set that they can use to change the future.”

Wilneris Carrion-Colon ’25 and Johnny Bae ’26 were among the students who participated in this year’s ALL-SPICE summer intensive program. They are both excited about pursuing careers in STEM.

In the summer program, the two Data and Computer Science majors used imaging technology to detect marine debris found off Windward Oahu. Carrion-Colon said satellite technology has become a valuable tool for detecting and classifying environmental phenomena on both land and aquatic environments.

The data science classroom was the main hub for the ALL-SPICE Summer Institute.
Thirty-two students were divided into three groups then into sub-groups as they pursued their research interests.
For four weeks, students researched their interests in environmental management and health disparities.
Students share their research with Kumu Kahoa Keahi-Wood.
Kumu Kahoa Keahi-Wood serves as the Environmental Project Lead and has been with SPICE's first cohort since 2019.

“By analyzing reflectance and absorption of light, spectral bands enable machines to differentiate material classes,” said Carrion-Colon, during her final presentation.

“Notably, the Windward side was chosen because it is particularly susceptible to marine debris accumulation due to prevailing ocean currents.”

Carrion-Colon noted there are limitations to her analysis, but added that’s reason to do more research.

In his research, Bae mapped out ocean plastics using machine learning in waters northeast of Oahu.

Also using multispectral satellite imagery and statistical learning algorithms to detect floating marine debris, Bae sought to underscore the critical role of technology in environmental management.

“Ultimately, this work contributes to protecting marine ecosystems, supporting economic stability and safeguarding public health,” said Bae, in presenting his findings.

“Future research and initiatives—stemming from detecting and mitigating plastic marine debris in Hawaii’s ocean using machine learning and AI—can significantly contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, specifically SDG 12, which focuses on responsible consumption and production; and SDG 13, which involves evaluating the carbon footprint of plastic debris.”

Open to all majors, from nursing and business to biology and interior design, the ALL-SPICE Data Science Summer Institute also teaches students how to code and use other cutting-edge tech.

Organizers say ALL-SPICE participants represent the region’s diversity, and include significant numbers of women and veterans. Students work in thematic areas that are of central importance to the Hawaii-Pacific region, including climate analytics, health inequity and the impacts of misinformation.

The summer institute also has a strong cultural component and culminates in a ho‘ike—a showcase of student projects). SPICE mentors include faculty, analysts and peers. To learn more, click here.

The SPICE program was funded by NSF INCLUDES ALL-SPICE Alliance #HRD-1744526. Student places were sponsored by ALL-SPICE and the following additional grants (Primary Investigator Dr. Helen Turner): NSF EPSCoR Hawaii (#OIA-2149133), the Pacific Intelligence Innovation Initiative, the Sullivan Family Foundation and NIH grant 3U54GM138062-03S1 (Primary Investigator Dr. Youping Deng, University of Hawaii).