With just hours remaining 

before polls opened for the 
2017-18 
Central 
Student 

Government 
elections 

Tuesday 
evening, 
Public 

Policy junior Nadine Jawad, 
the eMerge vice-presidential 
candidate 
who 
currently 

serves 
as 
an 
executive 

policy adviser, made a final 
proposal 
to 
the 
current 

assembly. Jawad introduced 
a 
resolution 
encouraging 

University 
of 
Michigan 

Housing to integrate voter 
registration 
into 
required 

first-year student events, an 
idea outlined in the party’s 
platform.

The resolution, citing a 

study that found fewer than 
half of University students 
voted 
in 
2012 
and 
2014, 

states that since all first-
year students are required 
to attend various Welcome 
Week events organized by 
University 
Housing, 
they 

should also integrate voter 
registration into transitional 
activities.

After six months of meeting 

with the administration and 
the 
University’s 
Residence 

Hall 
Association, 
Jawad 

tabled a discussion wherein 
she 
argued 
incorporating 

voter 
registration 
into 

required University Housing 
activities makes the most 
sense.

“We think that if we can 

get 
freshman 
when 
they 

first come here who haven’t 
registered to vote yet to 
register, we’ll make it easy 
through the first meeting,” 
Jawad said.

Upon meeting with RHA 

and LSA student government, 
Jawad 
agreed 
with 

suggestions that the initiative 
must be a collaborative effort 
between 
all 
organizations 

involved with required first-
year student events.

RHA 
President 
Sujay 

Shetty, an LSA sophomore, 
endorsed the resolution, and 
placed it on the agenda for 
the next two RHA Executive 
Board Meeting agendas.

“I thought it was a great 

idea,” Shetty said. “I couldn’t 
find any factors which would 
make it so it shouldn’t be 
passed.”

During 
her 
presentation 

to 
the 
assembly, 
Jawad 

argued the most effective 
way 
to 
integrate 
voter 

registration into the first-
year events would be through 
incorporating 
it 
into 
RA 

training each year.

Karthik 
Duraisamy, 
an 

assistant 
professor 
in 
the 

Aerospace 
Engineering 

Department and his team 
received a grant from the 
U.S. 
Air 
Force 
Research 

Laboratories and the Air Force 
Office of Scientific Research 
to investigate computational 
simulations related to rocket 
engine safety. The team was 
considered an underdog in the 
field but beat out competition 
from the Georgia Institute 
of Technology and Stanford 
University for the $4.2 million 
grant.

Duraisamy said the problem 

his team hopes to solve for 
the Air Force is designing 
systems 
to 
make 
rocket 

takeoff safer. He emphasized 
that his team members are not 
rocket builders — that they 
are just refining a computer 
simulation that helps catalyze 
the design cycle.

“Instead 
of 
designing, 

building, testing, blowing up 
and going back to the drawing 
board, what we want to do is 
run simulations of it virtually 
on 
computers,” 
Duraisamy 

said. 

His 
project 
focuses 
on 

streamlining 
the 
process 

using computers rather than 
overhauling 
rocketry 
in 

general.

John 
Dudley 
Hutson, 
a 

former U.S. Navy officer and 
judge 
advocate 
general 
of 

the Navy, joined author and 
former Marine Phil Klay as 
well as former Army officer Ian 
Fishback Wednesday evening 
on a panel in the Ford School of 
Public Policy. The panel, part of 
Ford’s Policy Talk series, aimed 
to confront ambiguities created 
by the intersection of national 
security and human rights. The 
discussion was moderated by 
Hardy Vieux, the legal director 
at Human Rights First and the 
Ford School Towsley Foundation 
policymaker in residence.

Vieux 
directed 
his 
first 

question at Hutson, asking if the 
perception of human rights and 
national security as incompatible 
spheres still exists today. Hutson 
argued the two do not conflict, 
and instead, human rights form 
the basis for national security — 
especially in regard to the war on 
terror.

michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Thursday, March 23, 2017

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

GOT A NEWS TIP?
Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail 
news@michigandaily.com and let us know.

INDEX
Vol. CXXVII, No. 51
©2017 The Michigan Daily

N E WS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

O PI N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

A R T S . . . . . . . . . B - S E C T I O N

S U D O K U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

CL A S S I F I E DS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Researchers 
receive funds
for rocket 
development

Investigative journalists discuss
privacy concerns in 21st century 

See ROCKET, Page 2A

ARNOLD ZHOU/Daily

Knight-Wallace journalists Bastian Obermayer and Laurent Richard discuss security concerns related to investigative journalism in the League on Wednesday.

RESEARCH

Aerospace prof. given $4.2 million 
grant from United States Air Force 

AARON DALAL
Daily Staff Reporter

Panama Papers’ Bastian Obermeyer, Laurent Richard present as part of Dissonance Series 

Two Knight-Wallace Fellows, 

Bastian Obermayer and Laurent 
Richard, presented Wednesday 
evening on a panel titled “Privacy 
and 
Security 
Challenges 
in 

Investigative Journalism.” Law 

Prof. Gautam Hans facilitated 
the event, which was part of the 
Dissonance speaker series.

Obermayer and Richard were 

part of the team of journalists that 
published the Panama Papers, a 
leak of 11.5 million documents that 
belonged to the law firm Mossack 
Fonseca. 
These 
documents 

detailed how more than 200,000 

offshore entities served as shell 
corporations for uses such as tax 
evasion, fraud and other illegal 
purposes, with links to dozens of 
world leaders.

The 
panelists 
discussed 

keeping 
sensitive 
information 

from being disclosed and how to 
contact sources while maintaining 
their safety as journalists and the 

safety of the sources.

“The question of the privacy 

and the safety of the sources or 
the journalists have been always 
in the history of journalism very 
central,” Richard said.

COLIN BERESFORD

Daily Staff Reporter

Ford panel 
talks rights, 
concerns of
ambiguity

CAMPUS LIFE

Policy conversation reviews
intersection of human 
rights and military life

NICOLE TSUNO

For the Daily

JOSHUA HAN/Daily

Public Policy junior Nadine Jawad, vice-presidential candidate for CSG, debates campus issues in the Student Pulica-
tions Building on Monday.

CSG deliberates on proposal aimed 
at boosting freshmen voter registration

Hours before polls open, eMerge candidate presents resolution with University housing

DYLAN LACROIX
Daily Staff Reporter

michigandaily.com

For more stories and coverage, visit

The University of Michigan’s 

discovery of gut bacteria in ill 
lungs has been entered into STAT 
Madness, a contest inspired by 
the 
NCAA’s 
March 
Madness 

tournament and run by STAT 
health news, aimed at finding the 
best innovations in science and 
medicine.

A research team lead by Dr. 

Robert Dickson of the University’s 
Department of Pulmonary and 
Critical Care discovered an increase 
in the severity of a patient’s illness 
was coupled with an increase in the 
amount of gut bacteria in the place 
of regular lung bacteria.

They concluded critical illness in 

the lungs affects the microbiome — 
microorganisms living in the body 
— more so than had been previously 
thought.

The research team was trying 

to 
determine 
was 
whether 

microorganisms or the body’s 
response 
to 
infections 
was 

responsible for intense critical 
illnesses.

Innovation
entered in 
nat’l STAT 
contest

RESEARCH

March Madness-style 
tournament aims to find 
best STEM discovery 

RASHEED ABDULLAH

Daily Staff Reporter

b-side: The Mental 

Health Issue

Arts explores the presence, 

purpose and effects of the 

relationship between art and 

mental health

» Page 1B

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

