From Classroom to Publication: Smith Tech Management Capstone Project Becomes Published Research

A collaboration between a unique nonprofit and a tireless group of Smith Technology Management students has resulted in the program’s first published research.

The nonprofit, The Institutes for Behavior Resources, Inc. (IBR), has developed an app that uses sleep data collected from wearables like Fitbits to tell the user when they need to sleep again, so they won’t be so tired that it poses a danger. “This is really designed for a professional driver or pilots,” said IBR Chief Sleep Scientist Jaime Devine. “It’s really about ‘are you going to be so tired that you’re going to fall asleep at the wheel?’” The SleepTank app displays a fuel gauge to indicate how much sleep a person has gotten. It shows how well the user filled their “tank” while sleeping, and projects how it will deplete over the next 24 hours. If the tank level is so low it’s considered hazardous, the app gives a warning and advises taking naps to avoid impairment. 

IBR has worked with three cohorts of MBA students in the Graduate Program in Technology Management thanks to Smith’s partnership with the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC).  Each cohort has worked with IBR to advance the fatigue science algorithms behind SleepTank from lab to market. The second project led to a study in a peer-reviewed academic journal. As part of their capstone project, the students were tasked with obtaining feedback on SleepTank’s design. They used their personal networks as well as social media posts on LinkedIn and Reddit. Reddit ads were posted on boards dedicated to shift work communities, like flight attendants and long-haul drivers. Devine submitted the results to the BMC Digital Health Journal. “This team did a really good job,” she said. “They hosted their own survey, collected all this data and presented their findings to us. It was really impressive, and I thought, ‘we should publish this, and that’s what we did.’”

Frank Goertner, director of the Tech Management Program and Federal & Veterans Affairs at Smith, said this student achievement is significant for a couple of reasons. “The assumption is that the capstone project is going to advance the technology or the company partner toward its goals. It’s kind of unique that this work also advanced the science.” Secondly, it’s remarkable that “the team’s approach to conducting customer discovery and surveying was deemed valid enough to be run through a peer-reviewed publication process.”

Goertner and the Academic Director of Smith’s Master of Science in Marketing Analytics program, Judy Frels, are co-instructors of the capstone course. “It’s actually an indication that these students are critical thinkers who not only understand the scientific process, but can approach a problem with the sense of rigor needed to publish in an academic journal,” Frels said. “It’s another marker, another piece of evidence that we’ve got critical thinkers here at Smith.”

The team of students was led by Amha Tekalign, MBA ’25, who was earning his Graduate Certificate in Technology Management at the time as part of Smith’s Flex MBA program. He and the other team members are listed as researchers on the study. “As a whole team, we’re very proud of it.” After earning his MBA, Tekalign was given a promotion, and he thinks being a published researcher will add value. “It adds credibility to our work. I’m excited to see how it can enhance my career moving forward.”

Read “Night Shift Worker Sleep Habits and Demand for Fatigue Management Features in a Mobile Application”, published in the journal BMC Digital Health.